
Class _ 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSJT 



jT 



SHAKESPEARE'S 



TWELFTH NIGHT; 

OR, WHAT YOU WILL. 



INTRODUCTION, AND NOTES EXPLANATORY AND CRITICAL. 
FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND FAMILIES. 

BY THE 

Rev. henry N. HUDSON,. 

PROFESSOR OF SHAKESPEARE IN BOSTON UNIVERSITY. 




BOSTON: 

PUBLISHED BY GINN & HEATH. 

1880. 






Entered according to Act of Congress, m the year 1880, by 

Henry N. Hudson, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



GiNN & Heath: 
J. S. Gushing, Printer, Boston. 



TO TEACHERS. 



HOW TO USE SHAKESPEARE IN SCHOOL. 

AS I have long been in frequent receipt of letters asking 
for advice or suggestions as to the best way of using 
Shakespeare in class, I have concluded to write out and 
print some of my thoughts on that subject. On one or two 
previous occasions, I have indeed moved the theme, but 
only, for the most part, incidentally, and in subordinate con- 
nection with other topics, never with any thing like a round 
and full exposition of it. 

And in the first place I am to remark, that in such a mat- 
ter no one can make up or describe, in detail, a method of 
teaching for another : in many points every teacher must 
strike out his or her own method ; for a method that works 
very well in one person's hands may nevertheless fail entirely 
in another's. Some general reasons or principles of method, 
together with a few practical hints of detail, is about all that 
I can undertake to give ; this too rather with a view to setting 
teachers' own minds at work in devising ways, than to mark- 
ing out any formal course of procedure. 

In the second place, here, as elsewhere, the method of 
teaching is to be shaped and suited to the particular purpose 
in hand; on the general principle, of course, that the end 
is to point out and prescribe the means. So, if the purpose 



IV TO TEACHERS. 

be to make the pupils in our public schools Shakespearians 
in any proper sense of the term, I can mark out no practi- 
cable method for the case, because I hold the purpose itself 
to be utterly impracticable ; one that cannot possibly be 
.carried out, and ought not to be, if it could. I find divers 
people talking and writing as if our boys and girls were to 
make a knowledge of Shakespeare the chief business of their 
hfe, and were to gain their living thereby. These have a 
sort of cant phrase current among them," about "knowing 
Shakespeare in an eminent sense " ; and they are instructing 
us that, in order to this, we must study the English language 
historically, and acquire a technical mastery of Elizabethan 
idioms. 

Now, to know Shakespeare in an eminent sense, if it means 
any thing, must mean, I take it, to become Shakespearians, 
or become eminent in the knowledge of Shakespeare ; that 
is to say, we must have such a knowledge of Shakespeare 
as can be gained only by making a special and continuous, 
or at least very frequent, study of him through many long 
years. So the people in question seem intent upon some 
plan or program of teaching whereby the pupils in our 
schools shall come out full-grown Shakespearians ; this too 
when half-a-dozen, or perhaps a dozen, of the Poet's plays 
is all they can possibly find time for studying through. And 
to this end, they would have them study the Poet's language 
historically, and so draw out largely into his social, moral, 
and mental surroundings, and ransack the literature of his 
time ; therewithal they would have their Shakespeare Gram- 
mars and Shakespeare Lexicons, and all the apparatus for 
training the pupils in a sort of learned verbalism, and in 
analyzing and parsing the Poet's sentences. 

Now I know of but three persons in the whole United 



HOW TO USE SHAKESPEARE IN SCHOOL. V 

States who have any just claim to be called Shakespearians, 
or who can be truly said to know Shakespeare in an eminent 
sense. Those are, of course, Mr. Grant White, Mr. Howard 
Furness, and Mr. Joseph Crosby. Beyond this goodly trio, 
I cannot name a single person in the land who is able to go 
alone, or even to stand alone, in any question of textual 
criticism or textual correction. For that is what it is to 
be a Shakespearian. And these three have become Shake- 
spearians, not by the help of any labour-saving machinery, 
such as special grammars and lexicons, but by spending many 
years of close study and hard brain-work in and around their 
author. Before reaching that point, they have not only had 
to study all through the Poet himself, and this a great many 
times, but also to make many excursions and sojoumings in 
the popular, and even the erudite authorship of his period. 
And the work has been almost, if not altogether, a pure 
labour of love with them. They have pursued it with im- 
passioned earnestness, as if they could find no rest for their 
souls without it. 

Well, and what do you suppose the result of all this has 
done or is doing for them in the way of making a living? 
Do you suppose they can begin to purchase their bread and 
butter, or even so much as the bread without the butter, with 
the proceeds of their great learning and accomphshments in 
that kind ? No, not a bit of it ! For the necessaries of life, 
every man of them has to depend mostly, if not entirely, on 
other means. If they had nothing to feed upon but what 
their Shakespeare knowledge brings them, they would- have 
mighty little use for their teeth. If you do not believe this, 
ask the men themselves : and if they tell you it is not so, 
then I will frankly own myself a naughty boy, and will do 
penance publicly for my naughtiness. For my own poor 



VI TO TEACHERS. 

part, I know right well that I have no claim to be called a 
Shakespearian, albeit I may, perchance, have had some fool- 
ish aspirations that way. Nevertheless I will venture to say 
that Shakespeare work does more towards procuring a liveli- 
hood for me than for either of the gentlemen named. This 
is doubtless because I am far inferior to them in Shake- 
spearian acquirement and culture. Yet, if I had nothing but 
the returns of my labour in that kind to live upon, I should 
have to Hve a good deal more cheaply than I do. And there 
would probably be no difficulty in finding persons that were 
not born till some time after my study of Shakespeare began, 
who, notwithstanding, can now outbid me altogether in any 
auction of bread-buying popularity. This, no doubt, is be- 
cause their natural gifts and fitness for the business are so 
superior to mine, that they might readily be extemporized 
into what no length of time and study could possibly educate 
me. 

In all this the three gentlemen aforesaid are, I presume, 
far from thinking they- have any thing to complain of, or from 
having any disposition to complain ; and I am certainly as 
far from this as they are. It is all in course, and all just 
right, except that I have a good deal better than I deserve. 
And both they and I know very well that nothing but a love 
of the thing can carry any one through such a work ; that in 
the nature of things such pursuits have to be their own re- 
ward ; and that here, as elsewhere, " love's not love when it 
is mingled with regards that stand aloof from th' entire 
point." 

Such, then, is the course and process by which, and by 
which alone, men can come to know Shakespeare in any 
sense deserving to be called eminent. It is a process of 
close, continuous, life-long study. And, in order to know 



HOW TO USE SHAKESPEARE IN SCHOOL. VU 

the Poet in this eminent sense, one must know a good deal 
more of him than of any thing else ; that is to say, the pur- 
suit must be something of a specialty with him ; unless his 
mind be by nature far more encyclopedic than most men's 
are. Then too, in the case of those who have reached this 
point, the process had its beginning in a deep and strong 
love of the subject : Shakespeare has been a passion with 
them, perhaps I should say the master-passion of their life : 
this was both the initiative impulse that set them a-going, 
and also the sustaining force that kept them going, in the 
work. Now such a love can hardly be wooed into hfe or 
made to sprout by a technical, parsing, gerund-grinding 
course of study. The proper genesis and growth of love 
are not apt to proceed in that way. A long and loving 
study may indeed produce, or go to seed in, a grammar or 
a lexicon ; but surely the grammar or the lexicon is not the 
thing to prompt or inaugurate the long and loving study. 
Or, if the study begin in that way, it will not be a study of 
the workmanship as poetry, but only, or chiefly, as the raw- 
material of Ungual science ; that is to say, as a subject for 
verbal dissection and surgery. 

If, then, any teacher would have his pupils go forth from 
school knowing Shakespeare in an eminent sense, he must 
shape and order his methods accordingly. What those 
methods may be, or should be, I cannot say ; but I should 
think they must be quite in the high-pressure line, and I 
more than suspect they will prove abortive, after all. And 
here I cannot forbear to remark that some few of us are so 
stuck in old-fogyism, or so fossilized," as to hold that the 
main business of people in this world is to gain an honest 
living; and that they ought to be educated with a con- 
stant eye to that purpose. These, to be sure, look very like 



Vin TO TEACHERS. 

self-evident propositions ; axioms, or mere truisms, which, 
nevertheless, our education seems determined to ignore 
entirely, and a due application of which would totally revo- 
lutionize our whole educational system. 

Now knowing Shakespeare in an eminent sense does not 
appear to be exactly the thing for gaining an honest living. 
All people but a few, a very few indeed, have, ought to 
have, must have, other things to do. I suspect that one 
Shakespearian in about five millions is enough. And a vast 
majority are to get their living by hand-work, not by head- 
work ; and even with those who live by head-work Shake- 
speare can very seldom be a leading interest. He can nowise 
be the substance or body of their mental food, but only, at 
the most, as a grateful seasoning thereof. Thinking of his 
poetry may be a pleasant and helpful companion for them in 
their business, but cannot be the business itself. His divine 
voice may be a sweetening tone, yet can be but a single tone, 
and an undertone at that, in the chorus of a well-ordered 
life and a daily round of honourable toil. Of the students 
in our colleges not one in a thousand, of the pupils in our 
high schools not one in a hundred thousand, can think, or 
ought to think, of becoming Shakespearians. But most of 
them, it may be hoped, can become men and women of right 
intellectual tastes and loves, and so be capable of a pure and 
elevating pleasure in the converse of books. Surely, then, 
in the little time that can be found for studying Shakespeare, 
the teaching should be shaped to the end, not of making 
the pupils Shakespearians, but only of doing somewhat — it 
cannot be much — towards making them wiser, better, hap- 
pier men and women. 

So, in reference to school study, what is the use of this 
cant about knowing Shakespeare in an eminent sense ? Why 



HOW TO USE SHAKESPEARE IN SCHOOL. IX 

talk of doing what no sane person can ever, for a moment, 
possibly think of attempting? The thing might well be 
passed by as one of the silliest cants that ever were canted, 
but that, as now often urged, it is of a very misleading and mis- 
chievous tendency ; like that other common folly of telHng 
all our boys that they may become President of the United 
States. This is the plain and simple truth of the matter, and 
as such I am for speaking it without any sort of mincing or 
disguise. In my vocabulary, indeed, on most occasions I 
choose that a spade be simply "a spade," and not "an 
instrument for removing earth." 

This brings me to the main point, to what may be called 
the heart of my message. Since any thing worthy to be 
termed an eminent knowledge of Shakespeare cannot possi- 
bly be gained or given in school, and could not be, even if 
ten times as many hours were spent in the study as can be, 
or ought to be, so spent, the question comes next. What, then, 
can be done ? And my answer, in the fewest words, is this : 
The most and the best that we can hope to do, is to plant 
in the pupils, and to nurse up as far as may be, a genuine 
taste and love for Shakespeare's poetry. The planting and 
nursing of this taste is purely a matter of culture, and not of 
acquirement : it is not properly giving the pupils knowledge ; 
it is but opening the road, and starting them on the way to 
knowledge. And such a taste, once well set in the mind, 
will be, or at least stand a good chance of being, an abiding 
principle, a prolific germ of wholesome and improving 
study : moreover it will naturally proceed till, in time, it 
comes to act as a strong elective instinct, causing the mind 
to gravitate towards what is good, and to recoil from what is 
bad : it may end in bringing, say, one in two millions to 
"know Shakespeare in an eminent sense" ; but it can hardly 



X TO TEACHERS. 

fail to be a precious and fruitful gain to many, perhaps to 
most, possibly to all. 

This I believe to be a thoroughly practicable aim. And 
as the aim itself is practicable, so there are practicable ways 
for attaining it or working towards it. What these ways are 
or may be, I can best set forth by tracing, as literally and 
distinctly as I know how, my own course of procedure in 
teaching. 

In the first place, I never have had, never will have, any 
recitations whatever ; but only what I call, simply, exercises, 
the pupils reading the author under my direction, correction, 
and explanation \ the teacher and the taught thus commun- 
ing together in the author's pages for the time being. Nor 
do I ever require, though I commonly advise, that the 
matter to be read in class be read over by the pupils in pri- 
vate before coming to the exercise. Such preparation is 
indeed well, but not necessary. I am very well satisfied by 
having the pupils live, breathe, think, feel with the author 
while his words are on their hps and in their ears. As I 
wish to have them simply growing, or getting the food of 
growth, I do not care to have them making any conscious 
acquirement at all; my aim thus always being to produce 
the utmost possible amount of silent effect. And I much 
prefer to have the classes rather small, never including more 
than twenty pupils ; even a somewhat smaller number is still 
better. Then, in Shakespeare, I always have the pupils read 
dramatically right round and round the class, myself calling 
the parts. When a speech is read, if the occasion seems to 
call for it, I make comments, ask questions, or have the 
pupils ask them, so as to be sure that they understand fairly 
what they are reading. That done, I call the next speech ; 
and so the reading and the talking proceed till the class-time 
is up. 



HOW TO USE SHAKESPEARE IN SCHOOL. XI 

In the second place, as to the nature and scope of these 
exercises, or the parts, elements, particulars they consist of. — 
In Shakespeare, the exercise is a mixed one of reading, 
language, and character. And I make a good deal of hav- 
ing the Poet's lines read properly ; this too both for the util- 
ity of it and as a choice and refined accomplishment, and 
also because such a reading of them greatly enhances the 
pleasure of the exercise both to the readers themselves and 
to the hearers. Here, of course, such points come in as the 
right pronunciation of words, the right place and degree of 
emphasis, the right pauses and divisions of sense, the right 
tones and inflections of voice. But the particulars that make 
up good reading are too well known to need dwelling upon. 
Suffice it to say, that in this part of the exercise my whole 
care is to have the pupils understand what they are read- 
ing, and to pronounce it so that an intelligent Hstener may 
understand it : that done, I rest content. But I tolerate 
nothing theatrical or declamatory or oratorical or put on for 
effect in the style of reading, and insist on a clean, clear, sim- 
ple, quiet voicing of the sense and meaning ; no strut, no 
swell, but all plain and pure ; that being my notion of taste- 
ful reading. 

Touching this point, I will but add that Shakespeare is 
both the easiest and also the hardest of all authors to read 
properly, — the easiest because he is the most natural, and 
the hardest for the same reason ; and for both these reasons 
together he is the best of all authors for training people in 
the art of reading : for an art it is, and a very high one too, 
insomuch that pure and perfect reading is one of the rarest 
things in the world, as it is also one of the delightfullest. 
The best description of what it is that now occurs to me is 
in Guy Maiinering, chapter 29th, where Julia Mannering writes 



Xll TO TEACHERS. 

to her friend how, of an evening, her father is wont to sweeten 
their home and its fireside by the choice matter and the taste- 
ful manner of his reading. And so my happy life — for it is 
a happy one — has little of better happiness in it than hearing 
my own beloved pupils read Shakespeare. 

As to the language part of the exercise, this is chiefly con- 
cerned with the meaning and force of the Poet's words, but 
also enters more or less into sundry points of grammar, word- 
growth, prosody, and rhetoric, making the whole as little 
technical as possible. And I use, or aim to use, all this for 
the one sole purpose of getting the pupils to understand what 
is immediately before them ; not looking at all to any lingual 
or philological purposes lying beyond the matter directly in 
hand. And here I take the utmost care not to push the part 
of verbal comment and explanation so long or so far as to 
become dull and tedious to the pupils. For as I wish them to 
study Shakespeare, simply that they may learn to understand 
and to love his poetry itself, so I must and will have them 
take pleasure in the process ; and people are not apt to fall or 
to grow in love with things that bore them. I would much 
rather they should not fully understand his thought, or not 
take in the full sense of his lines, than that they should feel 
any thing of weariness or disgust in the study ; for the defect 
of present comprehension can easily be repaired in the future, 
but not so the disgust. If they really love the poetry, and 
find it pleasant to their souls, I'll risk the rest. 

In truth, average pupils do not need nearly so much of cate- 
chizing and explaining as many teachers are apt to suppose. 
I have known divers cases where this process was carried to 
a very inordinate and hurtful excess, the matter being all 
chopped into a fine mince-meat of items ; questions and top- 
ics being multiplied to the last degree of minuteness and 



HOW TO USE SHAKESPEARE IN SCHOOL. XIH 

tenuity. Often well-nigh a hundred questions are pressed 
where there ought not to be more than one or two ; the aim 
being, apparently, to force an exhaustive grammatical study 
of the matter. And exhaustive of the pupil's interest and 
patience it may well prove to be. This is not studying Shake- 
speare, but merely using him as an occasion for studying 
something else. Surely, surely, such a course " is not, nor 
it cannot come to, good " : it is just the way to make pupils 
loathe the study as an intolerable bore, and wish the Poet 
had never been born. The thing to be aimed at before all 
others is, to draw and hold the pupil's mind in immediate 
contact with the poetry ; and such a multitude of mincing 
questions and comments is just a thick wedge of tiresome 
obstruction and separation driven in between the two. In 
my own teaching, my greatest fear commonly is, lest I may 
strangle and squelch the proper virtue and efi&cacy of the 
Poet's lines with my own incontinent catechetical and exeget- 
ical babble. 

Next, for the character part of the exercise. And here I 
have to say, at the start, that I cannot think it a good use of 
time to put pupils to the study of Shakespeare at all, until 
they have got strength and ripeness of mind enough to enter, 
at least in some fair measure, into the transpirations of char- 
acter in his persons. For this is indeed the Shakespeare of 
Shakespeare. And the process is as far as you can think 
from being a mere formal or mechanical or routine handling 
of words and phrases and figures of speech : it is nothing 
less than to hear and to see the hearts and souls of the 
persons in what they say and do ; to feel, as it were, the 
very pulse-throbs of their inner life. Herein it is that 
Shakespeare's unapproached and unaproachable mastery of 
human nature lies. Nor can I bear to have his poetry 



XIV TO TEACHERS. 

Studied merely as a curious thing standing outside of and 
apart from the common life of man, but as drawing directly 
into the living current of human interests, feelings, duties, 
needs, occasions. So I like to be often running the Poet's 
thoughts, and carrying the pupils with them, right out and 
home to the business and bosom of humanity about them ; 
into the follies, vices, and virtues, the meannesses and nobil- 
ities, the loves, joys, sorrows, and shames, the lapses and 
grandeurs, the disciplines, disasters, devotions, and divinities, 
of men and women as they really are in the world. For so 
the right use of his poetry is, to subserve the ends of life, 
not of talk. And if this part be rightly done, pupils will 
soon learn that "our gentle Shakespeare" is not a prodigious 
enchanter playing with sublime or grotesque imaginations for 
their amusement, but a friend and brother, all alive with the 
same heart that is in them ; and who, while he is but little 
less than an angel, is also at the same time but little more 
than themselves ; so that, beginning where his feet are, they 
can gradually rise, and keep rising, till they come to be at 
home where his great, deep, mighty intellect is. 

Such, substantially, and in some detail, is the course I 
have uniformly pursued in my Shakespeare classes. I have 
never cared to have my pupils make any show in analyzing 
and parsing the Poet's language, but I have cared much, 
very much, to have them understand and enjoy his poetry. 
Accordingly I have never touched the former at all, except 
so far as was clearly needful in order to secure the latter. 
And as the poetry was made for the purpose of being en- 
joyed, so, when I have seen the pupils enjoying it, this has 
been to me sufficient proof that they rightly understood it. 
True, I have never had, nor have I ever wanted, any availa- 
ble but cheap percentages of proficiency to set off my work : 



HOW TO USE SHAKESPEARE IN SCHOOL. XV 

perhaps my pupils have seldom had any idea of what they 
were getting from the study. Very well : then it has at least 
not fostered conceit in them : so I wished to have it, so was 
glad to have it : the results I aimed at were far off in the 
future ; nor have I had any fear of those results failing to 
emerge in due time. In fact, I cleave rather fondly to the 
hope of being remembered by my pupils with some affection 
after I shall be no more ; and I know right well that the best 
fruits of the best mental planting have and must have a 
pretty long interval between the seed-time and the harvest. 

Once, indeed, and it was my very first attempt, having a 
class of highly inteUigent young ladies, I undertook to put 
them through a pretty severe drill in prosody : after endur- 
ing it awhile, they remonstrated with me, giving me to 
understand that they wanted the light and pleasure properly 
belonging to the study, and not the tediousness that ped- 
antry or mere technical learning could force into it. They 
were right ; and herein I probably learnt more from them 
than they did from me. And so teaching of Shakespeare 
has been just the happiest occupation of my life : the whole- 
somest and most tonic too ; disposing me more than any 
other to severe and earnest thought : no drudgery in it, no 
dullness about it; but "as full of spirit as the month of 
May," and joyous as Wordsworth's lark hiding himself in the 
light of morning, and 

With a soul as strong as a mountain river 
Pouring out praise to the almighty Giver. 

But now certain wise ones are telling us that this is all 
wrong ; that teaching Shakespeare in this way is making, or 
tending to make, the study "an entertainment," and so not 
the "noble study " that it ought to be ; meaning, I suppose^ 



XVI TO TEACHERS. 

by nohle study, such a study as would bring the pupils to 
know Shakespeare in the eminent sense remarked upon 
before. What is this but to proceed in the work just as if 
the pupils were to become Shakespearians ; that is, special- 
ists in that particular line ? 

Thus they would import into this study the same false and 
vicious mode that has come to be used with the classics in 
our colleges. This mode is, to keep pegging away continu- 
ally at points of grammar and etymology, so as to leave no 
time or thought for the sense and meaning of what is read. 
Thus the classical author is used merely or mainly for the 
purpose of teaching the grammar, not the grammar for the 
purpose of understanding the author. For the practical 
upshot of such a course is, to have the student learn what 
modern linguists and grammarians have compiled, not what 
the old Greeks and Romans thought. This hind-first or 
hindmost-foremost process has grown to be a dreadful nui- 
sance in our practice, making the study of Greek and Latin 
inexpressibly hfeless and wearisome ; and utterly fruitless 
withal as regards real growth of mind and culture of taste. 

Some years ago, I had a talk on this subject with our late 
venerable patriarch of American letters, whose only grandson 
had then recently graduated from college. He told me he 
had gathered from the young man to what a wasteful and 
vicious extreme the thing was carried; and he spoke in 
terms of severe censure and reprobation of the custom. And 
so I have heard how a very learned professor one day spent 
the time of a whole recitation in talking about a comma that 
had been inserted in a Greek text; telling the class who 
inserted it, and when and why he did so ; also who had 
since accepted it, and who had since rejected it, and when 
and why ; also what effect the insertion had, and what the 



HOW TO USE SHAKESPEARE IN SCHOOL. XVll 

omission, on the sense of the passage. Now, if the students 
had all been predestined or predetermined specialists in 
Greek, this might possibly have been the right way ; but, as 
they were not so predestined or predetermined, the way was 
most certainly wrong, and a worse one could hardly have 
been taken. For the right course of study for those who are 
to be speciaHsts in this or that pursuit is one thing ; the right 
course for those who cannot be, and have no thought of 
being, specialists is a very different thing ; and to transfer 
the former course to the latter class, is a most preposterous 
blunder, yes, and a most mischievous one too. 

I have lately been given to understand that some of our 
best classical teachers have become sensible of this great 
error, and have set to work to correct it in practice. I 
understand also that noble old Harvard, wise in this, as in 
many other things, is leading the return to the older and 
better way. I hope most devoutly that it is so ; for the 
proper effect of the modern way can hardly be any other than 
to attenuate and chill and dwarf the student's better facul- 
ties. The thing, to be sure, has been done in the name of 
thoroughness ; but I believe it has proved thorough to no 
end but that of unsinewing the mind, and drying the sap out 
of it. 

But now the self-same false mode that has thus run itself 
into the ground in classical study must, it seems, be used 
in the study of Enghsh authors. For so the wise ones afore- 
said, those who are for having everybody know Shakespeare 
in an eminent sense, would, apparently, have the study en- 
nobled by continual diversions into the science of language, 
exercising the pupil's logical faculty, or rather his memory, 
with points of etymology, grammar, historical usage, &c. ; 
points that are, or may be made to appear, scientifically 



XVlll TO TEACHERS. 

demonstrable. Thus the thing they seem to have in view is 
about the same that certain positivist thinkers mean, when 
they would persuade us that no knowledge is really worth 
having but what stands on a basis of scientific demonstration, 
so that we not only may be certain of its truth, but cannot 
possibly be otherwise. 

So I have somewhere read of a certain mathematician who, 
on reading Paradise Lost, made this profound criticism, that 
" it was a very pretty piece of work, but he did not see that 
it proved any thing." But, if he had studied it in the 
modern way of studying poetry,- he would have found that 
divers things might be proved from it ; as, for instance, that 
a metaphor and a simile are at bottom one and the same 
thing, differing only in form, and that the author very seldom, 
if ever, makes use of the word its. And so the singing of a 
bird does not prove any thing scientifically ; and your best 
way of getting scientific knowledge about the little creature 
is by dissecting him, so as to find out where the music comes 
from, and how it is made. And so, again, what good can 
the flowers growing on your mother's grave do you, unless 
you use them as things to " keep and botanize " about, like 
the "philosopher" in one of Wordsworth's poems? 

The study of Shakespeare* an entertainment? Yes, to be 
sure, precisely that, if you please to call it so ; a pastime, a 
recreation, a delight. This is just what, in my notion of 
things, such a study ought to be. Why, what else should it 
be ? It is just what I have always tried my utmost, and I 
trust I may say with some little success, to make the study. 
Shakespeare's poetry, has it not a right to be to us a peren- 
nial spring of sweetness and refreshment, a thing 

Round which, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood 
Our pastime and our happiness may grow ? 



HOW TO USE SHAKESPEARE IN SCHOOL. XIX 

And so my supreme desire has been that the time spent in 
the study should be, to the pupils, brimful of quiet gladness 
and pleasantness ; and in so far as at any time it has not 
been so, just so far I have regarded my work as a sorry 
failure, and have determined to try and do better next time. 
What the dickens — I beg everybody's pardon — what can 
be the proper use of studying Shakespeare's poetry without 
enjoyment? Or do you suppose that any one can really 
delight in his poetry, without reaping therefrom the highest 
and purest benefit? The delectation is itself the appropriate 
earnest and proof that the student is drinking in — without 
knowing it indeed, and all the better for that — just the 
truest, deepest, finest culture that any poetry can give. 
What touches the mind's heart is apt to cause pleasure ; 
what merely grubs in its outskirts and suburbs is apt to be 
tedious and dull. Assuredly, therefore, if a teacher finds 
that his or her pupils, or any of them, cannot be wooed and 
won to take pleasure in the study of Shakespeare, then either 
the teacher should forthwith go to teaching something else, 
or the pupils should be put to some other study. 

What wise and wonderful ideas our progressive oblivion 
of the past is putting into people's heads ! Why, it has 
been, from time immemorial, a settled axiom, that the proper 
aim of poetry is to please, of the highest poetry, to make 
wisdom and virtue pleasant, to crown the True and the Good 
with delight and joy. This is the very constituent of the 
poet's art ; that without which it has no adequate reason for 
being. To clothe the austere forms of truth and wisdom 
with heart-taking beauty and sweetness, is its life and law. 
But then it is only when poetry is read as poetry that it is 
bound to please. When or so far as it is studied only as 
grammar or logic, it has a perfect right to be unpleasant. 



XX TO TEACHERS. 

Of course I hold that poetry, especially Shakespeare's, ought 
to be read as poetry ; and when it is not read with pleasure, 
the right grace and profit of the reading are missed. For 
the proper instructiveness of poetry is essentially dependant 
on its pleasantness ; whereas in other forms of writing this 
order is or niay be reversed. The sense or the conscience 
of what is morally good and right should indeed have a hand, 
and a prerogative hand, in shaping our pleasures ; and so, ' 
to be sure, it must be, else the pleasures will needs be tran- 
sient, and even the seed-time of future pains. So right- 
minded people ought to desire, and do desire, to find pleasure 
in what is right and good ; the highest pleasure in what is 
rightest and best : nevertheless the pleasure of the thing is 
what puts its healing, purifying, regenerating virtue into act ; 
and to converse with what is in itself beautiful and good 
without tasting any pleasantness in it, is or may be a positive 
harm. 

But, indeed, our education has totally lost the idea of cul- 
ture, and consequently has thrown aside the proper methods 
of it : it makes no account of any thing but acquirement. 
And the reason seems to be somewhat as follows: — The 
process of culture is silent and unconscious, because it works 
deep in the mind ; the process of acquirement is conscious 
and loud, because its work is all on the mind's surface. 
Moreover the former is exceedingly slow, insomuch as to 
yield from day to day no audible results, and so cannot be 
made available for effect in recitation : the latter is rapid, 
yielding recitable results from hour to hour ; the effect comes 
quickly, is quickly told in recitation, and makes a splendid 
appearance, thus tickling the vanity of pupils mightily, as also 
of their loving (self-loviiig ?) parents. 

But then, on the other hand, the culture that you have 



HOW TO USE SHAKESPEARE IN SCHOOL. XXI 

once got you thenceforward keep, and can nowise part with 
or lose it ; slow in coming, it comes to stay with you, and to 
be an indelible part of you : whereas your acquirement is, 
for the most part, quickly got, and as quickly lost ; for, in- 
deed, it makes no part of the mind, but merely hangs or 
sticks on its outside. So, here, the pupil just crams in study, 
disgorges in recitation, and then forgets it all, to go through 
another like round of cramming, disgorging, and forgetting. 
Thus the pulse of your acquirement is easily counted, and 
foots up superbly from day to day; but nobody can count 
the pulse of your culture, for it has none, at least none that 
is or can be perceived. In other words, the course of cul- 
ture is dimly marked by years ; that of acquirement is plainly 
marked by hours. 

And so no one can parse, or cares to parse, the delight he 
has in Shakespeare, for the parsing just kills the delight : the 
culture one gets from studying his poetry as poetry, he can 
nowise recite, for it is not a recitable thing, and he can tell 
you nothing about it : he can only say he loves the poetry, 
and that talking with it somehow recreates and refreshes him. 
But any one can easily learn to parse the Poet's words : what 
he gets from studying his poetry as grammar, or logic, or 
rhetoric, or prosody, this he can recite, can talk glibly about 
it ; but it stirs no love in him, has no recreation or refresh- 
ment for him at all ; none, that is, unless by touching his van- 
ity, and putting him in love with himself for the pretty show 
he makes in recitation. There is,' to be sure, a way of hand- 
ling the study of Shakespeare, whereby the pupils may be led 
to take pleasure not so much in his poetry itself as in their 
own supposed knowledge and appreciation of it. That way, 
however, I just do not believe in at all ; no ! not even though 
it be the right way for bringing pupils to know Shakespeare 



XXll TO TEACHERS. 

in the eminent sense. I have myself leamt him, if I may 
claim to know him at all, in a very uneminent sense, and have 
for more than forty years been drawn onwards in the study 
purely by the natural pleasantness of his poetry ; and so I am 
content to have others do. Thus, you see, it has never been 
with me "a noble study " at all. 

Well now, our education is continually saying, in effect if 
not in words, " What is the use of pursuing such studies, or 
pursuing them in such a way, as can produce no available re- 
sults, nothing to show, from day to day ? Put away your slow 
thing, whose course is but faintly marked even by years, and 
give us the spry thing, that marks its course brilliantly by days, 
perhaps by hours. Let the clock of our progress tick loudly, 
that we may always know just where it is, and just where we 
are. Except we can count the pulse of your process, we will 
not believe there is any life or virtue in it. None of your 
silences for us, if you please ! " 

A few words now on another, yet nearly connected, topic, 
and I have done. — I have long thought, and the thought 
has kept strengthening with me from year to year, that our 
educational work proceeds altogether too much by recita- 
tions. Our school routine is now a steady stream of these, 
so that teachers have no time for any thing else ; the pupils 
being thus held in a continual process of alternate crammings 
and disgorgings. As part and parcel of this recitation system, 
we must have frequent examinations and exhibitions, for a 
more emphatic marking of our progress. The thing has 
grown to the height of a monstrous abuse, and is threatening 
most serious consequences. It is a huge perpetual-motion 
of forcing and high-pressure ; no possible pains being spared 
to keep the pupils intensely conscious of their proficiency, 
or of their deficiency, as the case may be : motives of pride, 



HOW TO USE SHAKESPEARE IN SCHOOL. XXlll 

vanity, shame, ambition, rivalry, emulation, are constantly 
appealed to and stimulated, and the nervous system kept 
boiling-hot with them. Thus, to make the love of knowl- 
edge sprout soon enough, and grow fast and strong enough 
for our ideas, we are all the while dosing and provoking it 
with a sort of mental and moral cantharides. Surely, the 
old arguments of the rod and the ferule, as persuasives to 
diligence, were far wholesomer, yes, and far kinder too, than 
this constant application of intellectual drugs and high- 
wines : the former only made the skin tingle and smart a 
little while, and that was the end of it ; whereas the latter 
plants its pains within the very house of life, and leaves 
them rankHng and festering there. So our way is, to spare 
the skin and kill the heart. 

And, if the thing is not spoiling the boys, it is at all events 
killing the girls. For, as a general rule, girls are, I take it, 
more sensitive and excitable naturally than boys, and there- 
fore more liable to have their brain and nervous system 
fatally wronged and diseased by this dreadful, this cruel, 
fomenting with unnatural stimulants and provocatives. To 
fee sure, it makes them preternaturally bright and interesting 
for a while, and we think the process is working gloriously : 
but this is all because the dear creatures have come to 
blossom at a time when as yet the leaves should not have 
put forth j and so, when the proper time arrives for them to 
be in the full bloom of womanhood, leaf, blossom, and all 
are gone, leaving them faded and withered and joyless ; and 
chronic ill health, premature old age, untimely death, are their 
lot and portion. Of course, the thing cannot fail to have the 
effect of devitalizing and demoralizing and dwarfing the 
mind itself. The bright glow in its cheeks is but the hectic 
flush of a comsumptive state. 



XXIV TO TEACHERS. 

This is no fancy-picture, no dream of a speculative imagi- 
nation : it is only too true in matter of fact ; as any one may 
see, or rather as no one can choose but see, who uses his 
. eyes upon what is going on about us. Why, Massachusetts 
cannot now build asylums fast enough for her multiplying 
insane ; and, if things keep on as they are now going, the 
chances are that the whole State will in no very long time 
come to be almost one continuous hospital of lunatics. All 
this proceeds naturally and in course from our restless and 
reckless insistance on forcing what is, after all, but a showy, 
barren, conceited intellectualism. But, indeed, the conse- 
quences of this thing are, some of them, too appalling to be 
so much as hinted here : I can but speak the word 7nother- 
hood, — a word even more laden with tender and sacred 
meaning than womanhood, 

I have talked with a good many of our best teachers on 
this subject, never with any one who did not express a full 
concurrence with me in the opinion, that the recitation busi- 
ness is shockingly and ruinously overworked in our teaching. 
But they say they can do nothing, or at the best very little, 
to help it ; the public will have it so ; the thing has come to 
be a deep-seated chronic disease in our educational system : 
this disease has got to run its course and work itself through ; 
it is to be hoped that, when matters are at the worst, they 
will take a turn, and begin to mend : at all events, time alone 
can work out a redress of the wrong. In all this they are 
perfectly right ; so that the blame of the thing nowise rests 
with them. Neither does the blame rest ultimately with 
superintendents, supervisors, or committee-men, where Gail 
Hamilton, in her recent book, places it : the trouble lies 
further back, in the state of the public mind itself, which has 
for a long time been industriously, incessantly, systematically. 



HOW TO USE SHAKESPEARE IN SCHOOL, XXV 

perverted, corrupted, depraved, by plausible but shallow in- 
novators and quacks. 

The real truth is, things have come to that pass with us, 
that parents will not believe there is or can be any real growth 
of mind in their children, unless they can see them growing 
from day to day ; whereas a growing that can be so seen is 
of course just no growing at all, but only a bloating ; which I 
believe I have said somewhere before. In this wretched 
mispersuasion, they use all possible means to foster in their 
children a morbid habit of conscious acquirement ; and a 
system of recitations, examinations, and exhibitions to keep 
the process hot and steaming, is the thing to do it. 

But I more than suspect the primitive root of the difficulty 
lies deeper still, and is just here : That, having grown into a 
secret disrelish of the old religion of our fathers, as being too 
objective in its nature, and too firm and solid in its objec- 
tiveness, to suit our taste, we have turned to an idolatry of 
intellect and knowledge ; have no faith in any thing, no love 
for any thing, but what we spin, or seem to spin, out of our 
own minds. So in the idolatry of intellect, as in other idol- 
atries, the marble statue with which it begins naturally comes, 
in process of time, to be put aside as too weighty, too ex- 
pensive, and too still, and to be replaced with a hollow and 
worthless image all made up of paper and paint. And the 
cheaper and falser the idol is, the more eagerly do the 
devotees cut and scourge themselves in the worship of it. 
Hence the prating and pretentious intellectualism which we 
pursue with such suicidal eagerness. 

I must add, that of the same family mth the cant spoken 
of before is that other canting phrase now so rife among us 
about "the higher education." The lower education, yes, 
the lower, is what we want ; and if this be duly cared for, 



XXVI TO TEACHERS. 

the higher may be safely left to take care of itself. The 
latter will then come, and so it ought to come, of its own 
accord, just as fast and as far as the former finds or develops 
the individual aptitude for it ; and the attempting to give it 
regardless of such aptitude can only do what it is now doing, 
namely, spoil a great many people for all useful hand-work, 
without fitting them for any sort of head-work. 

Of course there are some studies which may, perhaps must, 
proceed more or less by recitation. But, as a perpetual show 
of mind in the young is and can be nothing but a perpetual 
sham, so I am and long have been perfectly satisfied that at 
least three-fourths of our recitations ought to be abandoned 
with all practicable speed, and be replaced by the better 
methods of our fathers, — methods that hold fast to the old 
law of what Dr. William B. Carpenter terms "unconscious 
cerebration," which is indeed the irrepealable law of all true 
mental growth and all right intellectual health. Nay, more ; 
the best results of the best thinking in the best and ripest 
heads come under the operation of the self-same law, — just 
that, and no other. 

Assuredly, therefore, the need now most urgently pressing 
upon us is, to have vastly more of growth, and vastly less of 
manufacture, in our education ; or, in other words, that the 
school be altogether more a garden, and altogether less a 
mill. And a garden, especially with the rich multitudinous 
flora of Shakespeare blooming and breathing in it, can it be, 
ought it to be, other than a pleasant and happy place ? 

The child whose love is here at least doth reap 
One precious gain, that he forgets himself. 



INTRODUCTION. 



Date of Composition. 

TWELFTH NIGHT ; or, What You Will, was never 
printed, that we know of, till in the folio of 1623. In 
default of positive information, the play was for a long time 
set down as among the last-written of the Poet's dramas. 
This opinion was based upon such slight indications, gath- 
ered from the work itself, as could have no weight but in the 
absence of other proofs. No contemporary notice of the 
play was discovered till the year 1828, when Collier, delving 
among the " musty records of antiquity " stored away in the 
Museum, lighted upon a manuscript Diary, written, as was 
afterwards ascertained, by one John Manningham, a barrister 
who was entered at the Middle Temple in 1597. Under 
date of February 2d, 1602, the author notes, "At our feast 
we had a play called Twelfth Night, or WJiat Yoii, Will, 
much like The Comedy of Errors, or Metiechmi in Plautus, 
but most like and near to that in the Italian called Inganni.'^ 
The writer then goes on to state such particulars of the 
action, as fully identify the play which he saw with the one 
now under consideration. It seems that the benchers and 
members of the several Inns-of-Court were wont to enrich 
their convivialities with a course of wit and poetry. And the 
forecited notice ascertains that Shakespeare's Twelfth Night 

3 



4 TWELFTH NIGHT. 

was performed before the members of the Middle Temple 
on the old Church festival of the Purification, formerly called 
Candlemas; — an important link in the course of festivities 
that used to continue from Christmas to Shrovetide. We 
thus learn that one of the Poet's sweetest plays was enjoyed 
by a gathering of his learned and studious contemporaries, 
at a time when this annual jubilee had rendered their minds 
congenial and apt, and when Christians have so much cause 
to be happy and gentle and kind, and therefore to cherish 
the convivial delectations whence kindness and happiness 
naturally grow. 

As to the date of the composition, we have little difficulty 
in fixing this somewhere between the time when the play was 
acted at the Temple and the year 1598. In iii. 2, when 
Malvolio is at the height of his ludicrous beatitude, Maria 
says of him, " He does smile his face into more lines than are 
in the new map, with the augmentation of the Indies." In 
1598 was published the second edition of Hakluyt's Voyages, 
with a map exactly answering to Maria's description. This 
was the first map of the world in which the Eastern Islands 
were included. So that the allusion can hardly be to any 
thing else ; and the words new map would seem to infer that 
the passage was written not long after the appearance of the 
map in question. 

Again : In iii. i, the Clown says to Viola, ^^ But, indeed, 
words are very rascals, since bonds disgraced them." This 
may be fairly understood as referring to an order issued by 
the Privy Council in June, 1 600, and laying very severe re- 
strictions upon stage performances. This order prescribes 
that " there shall be about the city two houses and no more, 
allowed to serve for the use of common stage plays " ; that 
"the two several companies of players, assigned unto the 



INTRODUCTION. 5 

two houses allowed, may play each of them in their several 
houses twice a- week, and no oftener " ; and that "they shall 
fgrbear altogether in the time of Lent, and likewise a1? such 
time and times as any extraordinary sickness or infection of 
disease shall appear to be in or about the city/' The order 
was directed to the principal magistrates of the city and 
suburbs, " strictly charging them to see to the execution of 
the same " ; and it is plain, that if rigidly enforced it would 
have amounted almost to a total suppression of play-houses, 
as the expenses of such establishments could hardly have 
been met, in the face of so great drawbacks. 

Therewithal it is to be noted that the Puritans were spe- 
cially forward and zealous in urging the complaints which put 
the Privy Council upon issuing this stringent process ; and 
it will hardly be questioned that the character of Malvolio 
was partly meant as a satire on that remarkable people. 
That the Poet should be somewhat provoked at their action 
in bringing about such tight restraints upon the freedom of 
his art, was certainly natural enough. Nor is it a small ad- 
dition to their many claims on our gratitude, that their apt- 
ness to " think, because they were virtuous, there should be 
no more cakes and ale," had the effect of caUing forth so 
rich and withal so good-natured a piece of retaliation. Per- 
haps it should be remarked further, that the order in ques- 
tion, though solicited by the authorities of the city, was not 
enforced ; for even at that early date those magistrates had 
hit upon the method of stimulating the complaints of dis- ' 
contented citizens till orders were taken for removing the 
alleged grievances, and then of letting such orders sleep, 
lest the enforcing of them should hush those complaints, and 
thus take away all pretext for keeping up the agitation. 



O TWELFTH NIGHT. 

Originals of the Story. 

The story upon which the more serious parts of Twelftf 
Night ^Qxt founded appears to have been a general favour-, 
ite before and during Shakespeare's time. It is met with in 
various forms and under various names in the ItaHan, 
French, and Enghsh Hterature of that period. The earHest y 
form of it known to us is in Bandello's collection of novels. '■ 
From the Italian of Bandello it was transferred, with certain \ 
changes and abridgments, into the French of Belleforest, and 
makes one in his collection of Tragical Histories. From 
one or the other of these sources the tale was borrowed 
again by Barnabe Rich, and set forth as The History of 
Apolofiius and Silla ; making the second in his collection of 
tales entitled Farewell to the Militajy Profession, which was 
first printed in 158 1. 

Until the discovery of Manningham's Diary, Shakespeare 
was not supposed to have gone beyond these sources, and it 
was thought something uncertain to which of these he was 
most indebted for the raw material of his play. It is now 
held doubtful whether he drew from either of them. The 
passage I have quoted from that Diaiy notes a close resem- 
blance of Twelfth Night to an Italian play " called Inganni.^^ 
This has had the effect of directing attention to the Italian 
theatre in quest of his originals. Two comedies bearing the 
title of Gr Inganni have been found, both of them framed 
upon the novel of Bandello, and both in print before the 
date of Twelfth Night. These, as also the three forms of 
the tale mentioned above, all agree in having a brother and 
sister, the latter in male attire, and the two bearing so close 
a resemblance in person and dress as to be indistinguish- 
able j upon which circumstance some of the leading inci- 



INTRODUCTION. 7 

dents are made to turn. In one of the Italian plays, the 
sister is represented as assuming the name of Cesare ; which 
!^ so like Cesario, the name adopted by Viola in her dis- 
guise, that the one may well be thought to have suggested 
the other. Beyond this point, Twelfth Night shows no clear 
connection with either of those plays. 

But there is a third Italian comedy, also lately brought to 
light, entitled GP Ingannati, which is said to have been 

frst printed in 1537. Here the traces of indebtedness are 
luch clearer and more numerous. I must content myself 
.with abridging the Rev. Joseph Hunter's statement of the 
matter. In the Italian play, a brother and sister, named 
Fabritio and Lelia, are separated at the sacking of Rome in 
1527. Lelia is carried to Modena, where a gentleman re- 
sides, named Flamineo, to whom she was formerly attached. 
She disguises herself as a boy, and enters his service. Fla- 
mineo, having forgotten his Lelia, is making suit to Isabella, a 
lady of Modena. The disguised Lelia is employed by him 
in his love-suit to Isabella, who remains utterly deaf to his 
passion, but falls desperately in love with the messenger. 
In the third Act the brother Fabritio arrives at Modena, and 
his close resemblance to Lelia in her male attire gives rise to 
some ludicrous mistakes. At one time, a servant of Isa- 
bella's meets him in the street, and takes him to her house, 
supposing him to be the messenger; just as Sebastian is 
taken for Viola, and led to the house of Olivia. In due 
time, the needful recognitions take place, whereupon Isabella 
easily transfers her affection to Fabritio, and Flamineo's 
heart no less easily ties up with the loving and faithful Lelia. 
In her disguise, Lelia takes the name of Fabio ; hence, most 
likely, the name of Fabian, who figures as one of Olivia's 
servants. The Italian play has also a subordinate character 



5 TWELFTH NIGHT. 

called Pasquella, to whom Maria corresponds ; and another 
named Malevolti, of which Malvolio is a happy adaptation. 
All which fully establishes the connection between the Italian 
comedy and "^e English. But it does not follow necessarily 
that the foreign original was used by Shakespeare ; so much 
of the lighter literature of his time having perished, that we 
cannot affirm with any certainty what importations from 
Italy may or may not have been accessible to him in his 
native tongue. ^ 

As for the more comic portions of Twelfth Night, — those 
in which Sir Toby Belch, Sir Andrew Aguecheek, and the 
Clown figure so delectably, — we have no reason for believ- 
ing that any part of them was borrowed ; there being no 
hints or traces of any thing like them in the previous ver- 
sions of the story, or in any other book or writing known to 
us. And it is to be observed, moreover, that the Poet's bor- 
rowings, in this instance as in others, relate only to the plot 
of the work, the poetry and character being all his own ; 
and that, here as elsewhere, he used what he took merely as 
the canvas whereon to pencil out and express the breathing 
creatures of his mind. So that the whole workmanship is 
just as original, in the only right sense of that term, as if the 
story and incidents had been altogether the children of his 
own invention : and he but followed his usual custom of so 
ordering his work as to secure whatever benefit might accrue 
from a sort of pre-established harmony between his subject 
and the popular mind. 

Qualities of Style. 
I am quite at a loss to conceive why Tzvelfth Night should 
ever have been referred to the Poet's latest period of author- 
ship. The play naturally falls, by the internal notes of style, 



INTRODUCTION. 9 

temper, and poetic grain, into the middle period of his pro- 
ductive years. It has no such marks of vast but immature 
powers as are often met with in his earHer plays ; nor, on the 
other hand, any of " that intense idiosyncrasy of thought and 
expression, — that unparallelled fusion of the intellectual 
with the passionate," — which distinguishes his later ones. 
Every thing is calm and quiet, with an air of unruffled 
serenity and composure about it, as if the Poet had pur- 
posely taken to such matter as he could easily mould into 
graceful and entertaining forms; thus exhibiting none of 
that crushing muscularity of mind to which the hardest ma- 
terials afterwards or elsewhere became as limber and pHant 
as clay in the hands of a potter. Yet the play has a marked 
severity of taste ; the style, though by no means so great as 
in some others, is singularly faultless ; the graces of wit and 
poetry are distilled into it with indescribable delicacy, as if 
they came from a hand at once the most plentiful and the 
most sparing : in short, the work is everywhere replete with 
" the modest charm of not too much " ; its beauty, hke that 
of the heroine, being of the still, deep, retiring sort, which it 
takes one long to find, for ever to exhaust, and which can be 
fully caught only by the reflective imagination in " the quiet 
and still air of delightful studies." Thus all things are dis- 
posed in most happy keeping with each other, and tempered 
in the blandest proportion of Art ; so as to illustrate how 

Grace, laughter, and discourse may meet. 
And yet the beauty not go less ; 
For what is noble should be sweet. 



lO TWELFTH NIGHT. 

Sir Toby Belch. 

If the characters of this play are generally less interesting 
in themselves than some we meet with elsewhere in the Poet's 
works, the defect is pretty well made up by the felicitous 
grouping of them. Their very diversities of temper and pur- 
pose are made to act as so many mutual affinities ; and this 
too in a manner so spontaneous that we see not how they 
could possibly act otherwise. For broad comic effect, the 
cluster of which Sir Toby is the centre — all of them drawn 
in clear yet delicate colours — is inferior only to the unpar- 
alleled assemblage that makes rich the air of Eastcheap. Of 
'^ir Toby himself — that most whimsical, madcap, frolicsome 
old toper, so full of antics and fond of sprees, with a plentiful 
stock of wit, which is kept in motion by an equally plentiful 
lack of money — it is enough to say, with Verplanck, that 
" he certainly comes out of the same associations where the 
Poet saw Falstaff hold his revels " ; and that, though "not 
Sir John, nor a fainter sketch of him, yet he has an odd sort 
of a family likeness to him." ^ir Toby has a decided /<?;2- 
chant for practical jokes ; though rather because he takes a 
sort of disinterested pleasure in them, than because he loves 
to see himself in the process of engineering them through : for 
he has not a particle of ill-nature in him. Though by no 
means a coward himself, he nevertheless enjoys the exposure 
of cowardice in others ; yet this again is not so much because 
such exposure feeds his self-esteem, as be^aiis^ he delights 
in the game for its' own sake, and for the nimble pastime it 
yields to his faculties : that is, his impulses seem to rest in it 
as an ultimate object, or a part of what is to him the sumtmun 
bonuin of life. And it is much the same with his addiction 
to vinous revelry, and to the moister kind of minstrelsy ; an 



INTRODUCTION. II 

addiction that proceeds in part from his keen gust of fun, and 
the happiness he finds in making sport for others as well as 
for himself : he will drink till the world turns round, but not 
unless others are at hand to enjoy the turning along with 
him. 

Sir And.re"w the Fatuous. 

Sir Andrew Aguecheek, the aspiring, lackadaisical, self- 
satisfied echo and sequel of Sir Toby, fitly serves the double 
purpose of a butt and a foil to the latter, at once drawing 
him out and setting him off. ' Ludicrously proud of the most 
petty, childish irregularities, which, however, his natural fatu- 
ity keeps him from acting, and barely suffers him to affect, 
on this point he reminds us of that impressive imbecility, 
Abraham Slender ; yet not in such sort as to encroach at all 
on Slender's province. There can scarcely be found a richer 
piece of diversion than Sir Toby's practice in dandling Sir 
Andrew out of his money, and paying him off with the odd 
hope of gaining Olivia's hand. And the funniest of it is, 
that while Sir Toby understands him thoroughly he has not 
himself the slighest suspicion or inkling of what he is ; he 
being as confident of his own wit as others are of his want 
of it. Nor are we here touched with any revulsions of moral 
feeling, such as might disturb our enjoyment of their fellow- 
ship ; on the contrary, we sympathize with Sir Toby's sport, 
without any reluctances of virtue or conscience. To our 
sense of the matter, he neither has nor ought to have 
any scruples or compunctions about the game he is hunting. 
For, in truth, his dealing with Sir Andrew is all in the way of 
fair exchange. He gives as much pleasure as he gets. If he 
is cheating Sir Andrew out of his money, he is also cheating 
him into the proper fehcity of his nature, and thus paying 



12 TWELFTH NIGHT. 

him with the equivalent best suited to his capacity. It suffices 
that, in being stuffed with the preposterous delusion about 
Olivia, Sir Andrew is rendered supremely happy at the time ; 
while he manifestly has not force enough to remember it with 
any twinges of shame or self-reproach. And we feel that, 
while clawing his fatuous crotchets and playing out his 
absurdities. Sir Toby is really doing Sir Andrew no wrong, 
since the latter is then most himself, is in his happiest mood, 
and in the most natural freedom of his indigenous gifts and 
graces. All which quite precludes any division of our sym- 
pathies, and just makes our comic enjoyment of their inter- 
course simply perfect. 

Malvolio the Pure. 

Malvolio, the self-love-sick Steward, has hardly had justice 
done him, his bad qualities being indeed of just the kind 
to defeat the recognition of his good ones. He represents 
a perpetual class of people, whose leading characteristic is 
moral demonstrativeness, and who are never satisfied with a 
law that leaves them free to do right, unless it also give 
them the power to keep others from doing wrong. To 
quote again from Verplanck, Malvolio embodies "a con- 
ception as true as it is original and droll ; and its truth may 
still be frequently attested by comparison with real Malvo- 
lios, to be found everywhere from humble domestic life up 
to the high places of learning, of the State, and even of 
the Church." From the central idea of the character it 
follows in course that the man has too much conscience to 
mind his own business, and is too pure to tolerate mirth in 
others, because too much swollen and stiffened with self-love 
to be merry himself. His highest exhilaration is when he 
contemplates the image of his self-imputed virtues : he lives 



INTRODUCTION. 1 3 

SO entranced with the beauty of his own inward parts, that 
he would fain hold himself the wrong side out, to the end 
that all the world may duly appreciate and admire him. 
Naturally, too, the more he hangs over his own moral beauty, 
the more pharisaical and sanctimonious he becomes in his 
opinion and treatment of others. For the glass which mag- 
fies to his view whatever of good there may be in himself, 
also serves him as an inverted telescope to minify the good 
of those about him ; and, which is more, the self-same spirit 
that prompts him to invert the instrument upon other men's 
virtues, naturally moves him to turn the big end upon their 
faults and the small end upon his own. Of course, there- 
fore, he is never without food for censure and reproof save 
when he is alone with himself, where, to be sure, his intense 
consciousness of virtue just breathes around him " the air of 
Paradise." Thus his continual frothing over with righteous 
indignation all proceeds from the yeast of pride and self- 
importance working mightily within him. Maria, whose 
keen eye and sure tongue seldom fail to hit the white of the 
mark, describes him as not being " any thing constantly, but 
a time-pleaser." And it is remarkable that the emphasized 
moral rigidity of such men is commonly but the outside of a 
mind secretly intent on the service of the time, and caring 
little for any thing but to trim its sails to the winds of self- 
interest and self-advancement. Yet Malvolio is really a man 
of no little talent and accomplishment, as he is also one of 
marked skill, fidelity, and rectitude in his calling ; so that he 
would be a right-worthy person all round, but for his inordi- 
nate craving ' 

to be dress'd in an opinion 

Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit ; 

As who should say, / atn Sir Oracle, 

And when I ope my lips, let no dog bark. 



14 TWELFTH NIGHT. 

This overweening moral coxcombry is not indeed to be reck- 
oned among the worst of crimes ; but perhaps there is no 
other one fault so generally or so justly offensive, and there- 
fore none so apt to provoke the merciless retaliations of 
mockery and practical wit. 

Maria the Gull-Catcher. 

Maria, the little structure packed so close with mental 
spicery, has read Malvolio through and through ; she knows 
him without and within ; and she never speaks of him, but 
that her speech touches the very pith of the theme ; as when 
she describes him to be one " that cons State without book, 
and utters it by great swaths ; the best-persuaded of himself, 
so crammed, as he thinks, with excellences, that it is his 
ground of faith that all who look on him love him." Her 
quaint stratagem of the letter has and is meant to have the 
effect of disclosing to others what her keener insight has long 
since discovered ; and its working lifts her into a model of 
arch, roguish mischievousness, with wit to plan and art to 
execute whatsoever falls within the scope of such a charac- 
ter. Her native sagacity has taught her how to touch him in 
just the right spots to bring out the reserved or latent notes 
of his character. Her diagnosis of his inward state is indeed 
perfect ; and when she makes the letter instruct him, — " Be 
opposite with a kinsman, surly with servants ; let thy tongue 
twang arguments of State ; put thyself into the trick of singu- 
larity," — her arrows are so aimed as to cleave the pin of his 
most characteristic predispositions. 

The scenes where the waggish troop, headed by this 
"noble gull-catcher" and "most excellent devil of wit," 
bewitch MalvoHo into "a contemplative idiot," practising 
upon his vanity and conceit till he seems ready to burst 



INTRODUCTION. 1 5 

with an ecstasy of self-consequence, and they " laugh them- 
selves into stitches " over him, are almost painfully divert- 
ing. It is indeed sport to see him "jet under his advanced 
plumes " ; and during this part of the operation our hearts 
freely keep time with theirs who are tickling out his buds 
into full-blown thoughts : at length, however, when he is 
under treatment as a madman, our delight in his exposure 
passes over into commiseration of his distress, and we feel 
a degree of resentment towards his ingenious persecutors. 
The Poet, no doubt, meant to push the joke upon him so far 
as to throw our sympathies over on his side, and make us 
take his part. For his character is such that perhaps nothing 
but excessive reprisals on his vanity and conceit could make 
us do justice to his real worth. 

Fabian and the Clown. 

The shrewd, mirth-loving Fabian, who in greedy silence 
devours up fun, tasting it too far down towards his knees to 
give any audible sign of the satisfaction it yields him, is an 
apt and wilHng agent in putting the stratagem through. If 
he does nothing towards inventing or cooking up the repast, 
he is at least a happy and genial partaker of the banquet that 
others have prepared. — Feste, the jester, completes this illus- 
trious group of laughing and laughter-moving personages. 
Though not, perhaps, quite so wise a fellow as Touchstone, 
of As- You-Like-It memory, nor endowed with so fluent and 
racy a fund of humour, he nevertheless has enough of both 
to meet all the demands of his situation. If, on the one 
hand, he never launches the ball of fun, neither, on the other, 
does he ever fail to do his part towards keeping it rolling. 
On the whole, he has a sufficiently facile and apposite gift at 
jesting out philosophy, and moraUzing the scenes where he 



l6 TWELFTH NIGHT. 

moves ; and whatever he has in that line is perfectly original 
with him. It strikes me, withal, as a rather noteworthy cir- 
cumstance that both the comedy and the romance of the 
play meet together in him, as in their natural home. He is 
indeed a right jolly fellow ; no note of mirth springs up but - 
he has answering susceptibilities for it to light upon ; but he 
also has at the same time a delicate vein of tender pathos in 
him ; as appears by the touchingly-plaintive song he sings, 
which, by the way, is one of 

The very sweetest Fancy culls or frames, 
Where tenderness of heart is strong and deep. 

I am not supposing this to be the measure of his lyrical in- 
vention, for the song probably is not of his making ; but the 
selection marks at least the setting of his taste, or rather the 
tuning of his soul, and thus discovers a choice reserve of 
feeling laid up in his breast. 

The Coraic Proceedings. 

Such are the scenes, such the characters that enliven 
Olivia's mansion during the play : Olivia herself, calm, 
cheerful, of "smooth, discreet, and stable bearing," hover- 
ing about them ; sometimes unbending, never losing her 
dignity among them \ often checking, oftener enjoying their 
111 erry- makings, and occasionally emerging from her seclusion 
to be plagued by the Duke's message and bewitched by his 
messenger : and Viola, always perfect in her part, yet always 
shrinking from it, appearing among them from time to time 
on her embassies of love ; sometimes a partaker, sometimes 
a provoker, sometimes the victim of their mischievous sport. 

All this array of comicalities, exhilarating as it is in itself, 
is rendered doubly so by the frequent changes and playings- 



INTRODUCTION. 1/ 

in of poetry breathed from the sweetest spots of romance, 
and which "gives a very echo to the seat where Love is 
throned " ; ideas and images of beauty creeping and steaHng 
over the mind with footsteps so soft and deHcate that we 
scarce know what touches us, — the motions of one that had 
learned to tread 

As if the wind, not he, did walk, 

Nor press'd a flower, nor bow'd a stalk. 

Upon this portion of the play Hazlitt has some spirited re- 
marks : " We have a friendship for Sir Toby ; we patronize 
Sir Andrew; we have an understanding with the Clown, a 
sneaking kindness for Maria and her rogueries ; we feel a 
regard for Malvolio, and sympathize with his gravity, his 
smiles, his cross-garters, his yellow stockings, and imprison- 
ment : but there is something that excites in us a stronger 
feeling than all this." 

Olivia the Countess. 

Olivia is a considerable instance how much a fair and 
candid setting-forth may do to render an ordinary person 
attractive, and shows that for the homebred comforts and 
fireside tenour of life such persons after all are apt to be the 
best. Nor, though something commonplace in her make- 
up, such as the average of cultivated womanhood is always 
found to be, is she without bright and penetrative thoughts, 
whenever the occasion calls for them. Her reply to the 
Steward, when, by way of scorching the Clown, he "mar- 
vels that her ladyship takes delight in such a barren rascal," 
gives the true texture of her mind and moral frame : " O, 
you are sick of self-love, Malvolio, and taste with a dis- 
tempered appetite. To be generous, guiltless, and of free 



15 TWELFTH NIGHT. 

disposition, is to take those things for bird-bolts that you 
deem cannon-bullets. There is no slander in an allowed 
Fool, though he do nothing but rail ; nor no railing m sl 
known discreet man, though he do nothing but reprove." 
Practical wisdom enough to make the course of any house- 
hold run smooth ! The instincts of a happy, placid temper 
have taught Olivia that there is as little of Christian virtue 
as of natural benignity in stinging away the spirit of kindness 
with a tongue of acid and acrimonious pietism. Her firm 
and healthy pulse beats in sympathy with the sportiveness in 
which the proper decorum of her station may not permit her 
to bear an active part. And she is too considerate, withal, 
not to look with indulgence on the pleasantries that are partly 
meant to divert her thoughts, and air off a too vivid remem- 
brance of her recent sorrows. Besides, she has gathered, 
even under the discipline of her own afflictions, that as, on 
the one hand, "what Nature makes us mourn she bids us 
heal," so, on the other, the free hilarities of wit and humour, 
even though there be something of nonsense mixed up with 
them, are a part of that " bland philosophy of life " which 
helps to knit us up in the unions of charity and peace ; that 
they promote cheerfulness of temper, smooth down the lines 
of care, sweeten away the asperities of the mind, make the 
eye sparkling and lustrous ; and, in short, do much of the 
/ery best stitching in the embroidered web of friendship and 
fair society. So that she finds abundant motive in reason, 
with no impediment in religion, to refrain from spoiling the 
merry passages of her friends and servants by looking black 
or sour upon them. 

Olivia is manifestly somewhat inclined to have her own 
way. But then it must also be acknowledged that her way 
is pretty apt to be right. This wilfulness, or something that 



INTRODUCTION. I9 

borders upon it, is shown alike in her impracticability to the 
Duke's solicitations, and in her pertinacity in soliciting his 
messenger. And it were well worth the while to know, if we 
could, how one so perverse in certain spots can manage not- 
withstanding to be so agreeable as a whole. Then too, if it 
seems rather naughty in her that she does not give the Duke 
a better chance to try his power upon her, she gets pretty 
well paid in falling a victim to the eloquence which her 
obstinacy stirs up. Nor is it altogether certain whether her 
conduct springs from a pride that will not listen where her 
fancy is not taken, or from an unambitious modesty that 
prefers not to " match above her degree." Her " beauty 
truly blent, whose red and white Nature's own sweet and 
cunning hand laid on," saves the credit of the fancy-smitten 
Duke in such an urgency of suit as might else breed some 
question of his manhness ; while her winning infirmity, as ex- 
pressed in the tender violence with which she hastens on " a 
contract and eternal bond of love" with the astonished 
and bewildered Sebastian, " that her most jealous and too 
doubtful soul may live at peace," shows how well the stern- 
ness of the brain may be tempered into amiability by the 
meekness of womanhood. 

Manifold indeed are the attractions which the Poet h-as 
shed upon his heroes and heroines ; yet perhaps the learned 
spirit of the man is more wisely apparent in the home-keep- 
ing virtues and unobtrusive beauty of his average characters. 
And surely the contemplation of Olivia may well suggest the 
question, whether the former be not sometimes too admirable 
to be so instructive as those whose graces walk more in the 
light of common day. At all events, the latter may best 
admonish us, 

How Verse may build a princely throne 
On humble truth. 



20 TWELFTH NIGHT. 



Orsino the Duke. 

Similar thoughts might aptly enough be suggested by the 
Duke, who, without any very splendid or striking qualities, 
manages somehow to be a highly agreeable and interesting 
person. His character is merely that of an accomplished 
gentleman, enraptured at the touch of music, and the sport 
of thick-thronging fancies. It is plain that Olivia has only 
enchanted his imagination, not won his heart ; though he is 
not himself aware that such is the case. This fancy-sickness 
— for it appears to be nothing else — naturally renders him 
somewhat capricious and fantastical, " unstaid and skittish in 
his motions " ; and, but for the exquisite poetry which it 
inspires him to utter, would rather excite our mirth than 
enlist our sympathy. To use an illustration from another 
play, Olivia is not so much his Juhet as his Rosaline ; and 
perhaps a secret persuasion to that effect is the real cause of 
her rejecting his suit. Accordingly, when he sees her placed 
beyond his hope, he has no more trouble about her ; but 
turns, and builds a true affection where, during the preoc- 
cupancy of his imagination, so many sweet and tender ap- 
peals have been made to his heart. 

In Shakespeare's delineations as in nature, we may com- 
monly note that love, in proportion as it is deep and genu- 
ine, is also inward and reserved. To be voluble, to be fond . 
of spreading itself in discourse, or of airing itself in the 
fineries of speech, seems indeed quite against the instinct 
of that passion ; and its best eloquence is when it ties up 
the tongue, and s^ea/s out in other modes of expression, the 
flushing of the cheeks and the mute devotion of the eyes. 
In its purest forms, it is apt to be a secret even unto itself, 
the subjects of it knowing indeed that something ails them. 



INTRODUCTION. 21 

but not knowing exactly what. So that the most effective 
love-making is involuntary and unconscious. And I suspect 
that, as a general thing, if the true lover's passion be not 
returned before it is spoken, it stands little chance of being 
returned at all. 

Now, in Orsino's case, the passion, or whatever else it 
may be, is too much without to be thoroughly sound within. 
Like Malvolio's virtue, it is too glass-gazing, too much en- 
amoured of its own image, and renders him too apprehensive 
that it will be the death of him, if disappointed of its object. 
Accordingly he talks too much about it, and his talking 
about it is too ingenious withal ; it makes his tongue run 
glib and fine with the most charming divisions of poetic 
imagery and sentiment; all which shrewdly infers that he 
lacks the genuine thing, and has mistaken something else 
for it. Yet, when we hear him dropping such riches as this, 



and this. 



O, when mine eyes did see Olivia first, 
Methought she purged the air of pestilence ! 

She that hath a heart of that fine frame 
To pay this debt of love but to a brother, 
How will she love when the rich golden shaft 
Hath kill'd the flock of all affections else 
That live in her ! 

we can hardly help wishing that such were indeed the true 
vernacular of that passion. But it is not so, and on the 
whole it is much better than so : for love, that which is rightly 
so called, uses a diviner language even than that ; and this 
it does when, taking the form of religion, it sweetly and silently 
embodies itself in deeds. And this is the love that Southey 
had in mind when he wrote. 

They sin who tell us love can die. 



22 TWELFTH NIGHT. 

The Heroine. 

In Viola, divers things that were else not a little scattered 
are thoroughly composed ; her character being the unifying 
power that draws all the parts into true dramatic consistency. 
Love-taught herself, it was for her to teach both Orsino and 
Olivia how to love : indeed she plays into all the other parts, 
causing them to embrace and cohere within the compass of 
her circulation. And yet, like some subtile agency, working 
most where we perceive it least, she does all this without 
rendering herself a special prominence in the play. 

It is observable that the Poet has left it uncertain whether 
Viola was in love with the Duke before assuming her disguise, 
or whether her heart was won afterwards by reading "the 
book even of his secret soul " while wooing another. Nor 
does it much matter whether her passion were the motive or 
the consequence of her disguise, since in either case such a^ 
man as Olivia describes him to be might well find his way to 
tougher hearts than Viola's. But her love has none of the 
skittishness and unrest which mark ihe Duke's passion for 
Olivia : complicated out of all the elements of her being, it 
is strong without violence ; never mars the innate modesty 
of her character; is deep as life, tender as infancy, pure, 
peaceful, and unchangeable as truth. 

Mrs. Jameson — who, with the best right to know what 
belongs to woman, unites a rare talent for taking others along 
with her, and letting them see the choice things which her ap- 
prehensive eye discerns, and who, in respect of Shakespeare's 
heroines, has left litde for others to do but quote her words — 
remarks that "in Viola a sweet consciousness of her feminine 
nature is for ever breaking through her masquerade : she plays 
her part well, but never forgets, nor allows us to forget, that 



INTRODUCTION. 2^ 

she is playing a part." And, sure enough, every thing about 
her save her dress "is semblative a woman's part " : she has 
none of the assumption of a pert, saucy, waggish manhood, 
which so dehghts us in RosaHnd in As You Like If; but she 
has that which, if not better in itself, is more becoming in 
her, — "the inward and spiritual grace of modesty " pervading 
all she does and says. Even in her railleries with the comic 
characters there is all the while an instinctive drawing-back 
of female deUcacy, touching our sympathies, and causing us 
to feel most deeply what she is, when those with whom she 
is playing least suspect her to be other than she seems. And 
the same is true concerning her passion, of which she never 
so speaks as to compromise in the least the delicacies and 
proprieties of her sex; yet she lets fall many things from 
which the Duke easily gathers the drift and quality of her 
feelings directly he learns what she is. But the great charm 
of her character lies in a moral rectitude so perfect and so 
pure as to be a secret unto itself; a clear, serene composure 
of truth, mingling so freely and smoothly with the issues of 
life, that while, and perhaps even because she is herself un- 
conscious of it, she is never once tempted to abuse or to shirk 
her trust, though it be to play the attorney in a cause that 
makes so much against herself. In this respect she presents 
an instructive contrast to Malvolio, who has much virtue in- 
deed, yet not so much but that the counter-pulhngs have 
rendered him intensely conscious of it, and so drawn him 
into the vice, at once hateful and ridiculous, of moral pride. 
The virtue that fosters conceit and censoriousness is like a 
dyspeptic stomach, the owner of which is made all too sen- 
sible of it by the conversion of his food to wind, — a wind 
that puffs him up. On the other hand, a virtue that breathes 
so freely as not to be aware of its breathing is the right moral 



24 TWELFTH NIGHT. 

analogue of a thoroughly eupeptic state ; as " the healthy- 
know not of their health, but only the sick." 

Sundry critics have censured, some of them pretty sharply, 
the improbabihty involved in the circumstance of Viola and 
Sebastian resembling each other so closely as to be mistaken 
the one for the other. Even so just and liberal a critic as 
Hallam has stumbled at this circumstance, so much so as 
quite to disconcert his judgment of the play. The improba- 
bility is indeed palpable enough ; yet I have to confess that 
it has never troubled me, any more than certain things not 
less improbable in As You Like If. But even if it had, still 
I should not hold it any just ground for faulting the Poet, in- 
asmuch as the circumstance was an accepted article in the 
literary faith of his time. But indeed this censure proceeds 
from that old heresy which supposes the proper effect of a 
work of art to depend on the imagined reality of the matter 
presented ; that is, which substitutes the delusions of insan- 
ity for the half-voluntary illusions of a rational and refining 
pleasure, 

Sebastian. 

Of Sebastian himself the less need be said, forasmuch as 
the leading traits of his character, in my conception of it, 
have been substantially evolved in what I have said of his 
sister. For the two are really as much alike in the inward 
texture of their souls as in their visible persons ; at least 
their mutual resemblance in the former respect is as close 
as were compatible with proper manhness in the one, and 
proper womanliness in the other. Personal bravery, for 
example, is as characteristic of him as modesty is of her. 
In simplicity, in gentleness, in rectitude, in delicacy of 
mind, and in all the particulars of what may be termed com- 



INTRODUCTION. 25 

plexional harmony and healthiness of nature, — in these 
they are as much twins as in birth and feature. Therewithal 
they are both alike free from any notes of a pampered self- 
consciousness. Yet in all these points a nice discrimina- 
tion of the masculine and feminine proprieties is everywhere 
maintained. In a word, there is no confusion of sex in the 
delineation of them : as like as they are, without and within, 
the man and the woman are nevertheless perfectly differen- 
tiated in all the essential attributes of each. 

The conditions of the plot did not require nor even 
permit Sebastian to be often or much in sight. We have 
indeed but little from him, but that little is intensely charged 
with significance ; in fact, I hardly know of another instance 
in Shakespeare where so much of character is accomplished 
in so few words. The scene where he is first met with con- 
sists merely of a brief dialogue between him and Antonio, 
the man who a little before has recovered him from the 
perils of shipwreck. He there has neither time nor heart 
for any thing but gratitude to his deliverer, and sorrow at the 
supposed death of his sister : yet his expression of these is 
so ordered as to infer all the parts of a thorough gentleman ; 
the efficacies of a generous nature, of good breeding, of 
liberal culture, and of high principle, all concurring in one 
result, and thus filling up the right idea of poHteness as 
" benevolence guided by intelligence." 

General Characteristics. * 

The society delineated in this play is singularly varied 
and composite ; the names of the persons being a mixture 
of Spanish, Itahan, and EngHsh. Though the scene is laid 
in lUyria, the period of the action is undefined, and the 
manners and costumes are left in the freedom of whatever 



26 TWELFTH NIGHT. 

time we may choose antecedent to that of the composition, 
provided we do not exceed the proper limits of imaginative 
reason. 

This variety in the grouping of the persons, whether so 
intended or not, very well accords with the spirit in which, 
or the occasion for which, the title indicates the play to have 
been written. Twelfth Day, anciently so called as being the 
twelfth after Christmas, is the day whereon the Church has 
always kept the feast of " The Epiphany, or the Manifesta- 
tion of Christ to the Gentiles." So that, in preparing a 
Twelfth- Night entertainment, the idea of fitness might aptly 
suggest, that national lines and distinctions should be lost in 
the paramount ties of a common Religion ; and that people 
the most diverse in kindred and tongue should draw to- 
gether in the sentiment of " one Lord, one Faith, one Bap- 
tism " ; their social mirth thus rehshing of universal Brother- 
hood. 

The general scope and plan of Twelfth Night, as a work 
of art, is hinted in its second title j all the comic elements 
being, as it were, thrown out simultaneously, and held in a 
sort of equipoise \ so that the readers are left to fix the pre- 
ponderance where it best suits their several bent or state of 
mind, and each, within certain limits and conditions, may 
take the work in what sense he will. For, where no special 
prominence is given to any one thing, there is the wider 
scope for individual aptitude or preference, and the greater 
freedom for each to select for virtual prominence such parts 
as will best knit in with what is uppermost in his thoughts. 

The significance of the title is further traceable in a pecu- 
liar spontaneousness running through the play. Replete as 
it is with humours and oddities, they all seem to spring up 
of their own accord ; the comic characters being free ahke 



INTRODUCTION. 2/ 

from disguises and pretensions, and seeking merely to let 
off their inward redundancy ; caring nothing at all whether 
everybody or nobody sees them, so they may have their 
whim out, and giving utterance to folly and nonsense simply 
because they cannot help it. Thus their very deformities 
have a certain grace, since they are genuine and of Nature's 
planting : absurdity and whimsicahty are indigenous to the 
soil, and shoot up in free, happy luxuriance, from the life 
that is in them. And by thus setting the characters out in 
their happiest aspects, the Poet contrives to make them sim- 
ply ludicrous and diverting, instead of putting upon them the 
constructions of wit or spleen, and thereby making them 
ridiculous or contemptible. Hence it is that we so readily 
enter into a sort of fellowship with them ; their foibles and 
follies being shown up in such a spirit of good-humour, that 
the subjects themselves would rather join with us in laugh- 
ing than be angered or hurt at the exhibition. Moreover 
the high and the low are here seen moving in free and 
familiar intercourse, without any apparent consciousness of 
their respective ranks : the humours and comicalities of the 
play keep running and frisking in among the serious parts, to 
their mutual advantage ; the connection between them being 
of a kind to be felt, not described. 

Thus the piece overflows with the genial, free-and-easy 
spirit of a merry Twelfth Night. Chance, caprice, and in- 
trigue, it is true, are brought together in about equal por- 
tions ; and their meeting and crossing and mutual tripping 
cause a deal of perplexity and confusion, defeating the hopes 
of some, suspending those of others : yet here, as is often the 
case in actual life, from this conflict of opposites order and 
happiness spring up as the final result : if what we call acci- 
dent thwart one cherished purpose, it draws on something 



28 TWELFTH NIGHT. 

better, blighting a full-blown expectation now, to help the 
blossoming of a nobler one hereafter : and it so happens in 
the end that all the persons but two either have w/iaf they 
will, or else grow willing to have what comes to their hands. 
Such, I believe, as nearly as I know how to deliver it, is 
the impression I hold of this charming play ; an impression 
that has survived, rather- say, has kept growing deeper and 
deeper through many years of study, and after many, many 
an hour spent in quiet communion with its scenes and char- 
acters. 'In no one of his dramas, to my sense, does the 
Poet appear to have been in a healthier or happier frame of 
mind, more free from the fascination of the darker problems 
of humanity, more at peace with himself and all the world, 
or with Nature playing more kindly and genially at his heart, 
and from thence diffusing her benedictions through his whole 
establishment. So that, judging from this transpiration of 
his inner poetic life, I should conclude him to have had 
abundant cause for saying. 

Eternal blessings on the Muse, 

And her divine employment ; — 

The blameless Muse who trains her sons 

For hope and calm enjoyment. 



TWELFTH NIGHT; 

OR, WHAT YOU WILL. 



PERSONS REPRESENTED. 



Orsino, Duke of lUyria, 
Sebastian, a young Gentleman. 
Antonio, a Sea Captain, Friend to 

Sebastian. 
A Sea Captain, Friend to Viola. 
Valentine, ) Gentlemen attending 
Curio, J on the Duke. 

Sir Toby- Belch, Uncle of Olivia. 



Sir Andrew Aguecheek. 

Malvolio, Steward to Olivia. 

Fabian, i „ * ^ /-m- ■ 

. ^, \ Servants to Olivia. 

A Clown, J 

Olivia, a Countess. 
Viola, Sister to Sebastian. 
Maria, Olivia's Woman. 



Lords, a Priest, Sailors, Officers, Musicians, and other attendants. 
Scene, a City in Illyria ; and the Sea-coast near it. 



ACT I. 

Scene I. — An Apartment in the Duke's Palace. 

Enter the Duke, Lords, ^/z^- Curio ; Musicians attending. 

Duke. If music be the food of love, play on \ 
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, 
The appetite may sicken, and so die. 
That strain again ! it had a dying fall : i 

1 The sense of dyings as here used, is technically expressed by diminu- 
endo. 

29 



30 TWELFTH NIGHT ; OR, ACT I. 

O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet south, 

That breathes upon a bank of violets, 

Stealing and giving odour ! — Enough ; no more i 

'Tis not so sweet now as it was before. — 

O spirit of love, how quick and fresh art thou ! 

That, notwithstanding thy capacity 

Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there, 

Of what validity 2 and pitch soe'er. 

But falls into abatement and low price, 

Even in a minute ! so full of shapes is fancy,^ 

That it alone is high-fantastical. 

Cur. Will you go hunt, my lord ? 

Duke, What, Curio? 

Cur. The hart. 

Duke. Why, so I do, the noblest that I have : 
O, when mine eyes did see Olivia first, 
Methought she purged the air of pestilence !) 
That instant was I turn'd into a hart ; 
And my desires, like fell and cruel hounds, 
E'er since pursue me.^ — 

Enter Valentine. 

How now ! what news from her? 

Val. So piease my lord, I might not be admitted ; 
But from her handmaid do return this answer ; 

2 Validity is worth, value. So in All's Well, v. 3 : " Behold this ring, 
whose high respect and rich validity did lack a parallel." 

3 Fancy is continually used by old writers for love. There is a play on 
the word here. 

4 Shakespeare seems to think men cautioned against too great familiar- 
ity with forbidden beauty by the fable of Actaeon, who saw Diana naked, and 
was torn to pieces by his hounds ; as a man indulging his eyes or his imagi- 
nation with a view of a woman he cannot gain, has his heart torn with 
incessant longing. 



SCENE II. WHAT YOU WILL. 3 1 

The element ^ itself, till seven years hence, 

Shall not behold her face at ample view ; 

But, like a cloistress, she will veiled walk. 

And water once a day her chamber round 

With eye-offending brine : all this to season ^ 

A brother's dead love, which she would keep fresh 

And lasting in her sad remembrance. 

Duke. O, she that hath a heart of that fine frame 
To pay this debt of love but to a brother. 
How will she love, when the rich golden shaft 
Hath kill'd the flock of all affections else 
That live in her ; when liver, brain, and heart. 
These sovereign thrones, her sweet perfections. 
Are all suppHed and fiU'd with one self king ! "^ — 
Away before me to sweet beds of flowers : 
Love-thoughts lie rich when canopied with bowers. \Exeunt. 

Scene II. — The Sea-coast. 

Enter Viola, Captain, aiid Sailors. 

Vio. What country, friends, is this ? 

Cap. Illyria, lady. 

Vio. And what should I do in Illyria ? 

5 Element here means the sky. So in 2 Henry /F., iv. 3 : " And I, in the 
clear sky of fame, o'ershine you as much as the full Moon doth the cinders 
of the element, which show like pins' heads to her " ; cinders meaning, of 
course, the stars. 

6 To season is to preserve. In AlVs Well, i. i, tears are said to be " the 
best' brine a maiden can seaso?t her praise in." 

7 The liver, brain, and heart were regarded as the special seats of passion, 
judgment, and affection, and so were put respectively for their supposed 
occupants. — One self kitig is equivalent to one and the same king. The 
Poet often uses selfyN\\Sx the force of salf-same. 



32 TWELFTH NIGHT; OR, ACT I. 

My brother he is in Elysium. 

Perchance he is not drown'd : what think you, sailors? 

Cap. It is perchance ^ that you yourself were saved. 

Vio. O my poor brother ! and so perchance may he be. 

Cap. True, madam : and, to comfort you with chance. 
Assure yourself, after our ship did split, 
AVhen you, and this poor number saved with you, 
Hung on our driving boat,^ I saw your brother. 
Most provident in peril, bind himself — 
Courage and hope both teaching him the practice — 
To a strong mast that lived upon the sea ; 
Where, like Arion on the dolphin's back,^ 
I saw him hold acquaintance with the waves 
So long as I could see. 

Vio. For saying so, there's gold : 

Mine own escape unfoldeth to my hope, 
Whereto thy speech serves for authority, 
The like of him. Know'st thou this country ? 

Cap. Ay, madam, well ; for I was bred and born 

1 Viola first vs^.s perchance in the sense oi perhaps ; the Captain in that 
of by chance, accident, or good luck. 

2 " Driving boat " means, I suppose, boat driven before the storm. 

3 Arion's feat is worthily described in Wordsworth's poem On the Power 
of sound: 

Thy skill, Arion, 
Could humanize the creaures of the sea. 
Where men were monsters. A last grace he craves, 
Leave for one chant ; — the dulcet sound 
Steals from the deck o'er willing waves, 
And listening dolphins gather round. 
Self-cast, as with a desperate course, 
Mid that strange audience, he bestrides 
A proud one docile as a managed horse; 
And singing, while the accordant hand 
Sweeps his harp, the master rides. 



SCENE II. WHAT YOU WILL. 33 

Not three hours' travel from this very place. 

Vio. Who governs here ? 

Cap. A noble duke, in nature as in name.'^ 

Vio. What is his name ? 

Cap. Orsino. 

Vio. Orsino ! I have heard my father name him : 
He was a bachelor then. 

Cap. And so is now, or was so very late ; 
For but a month ago I went from hence, 
And then 'twas fresh in murmur, — as, you know, 
What great ones do, the less will prattle of, — 
That he did seek the love of fair Olivia. 

Vio. What's she ? 

Cap. A virtuous maid, the daughter of a count 
That died some twelvemonth since ; then leaving her 
In the protection of his son, her brother, 
Who shortly also died : for whose dear loss, 
They say, she hath abjured the company 
And sight of men. 

Vio. O, that I served that lady, 

And might not be deliver' d to the world. 
Till I had made mine own occasion mellow, 
What my estate is ! ^ 

Cap. That were hard to compass ; 

Because she will admit no kind of suit, 
No, not the Duke's. 

4 An allusion, no doubt, to the great and well-known Italian family of 
Orsini, from whom the name Orsino is borrowed. 

5 Viola is herself a nobleman's daughter ; and she here wishes that her 
birth and quality — her estate — may be kept secret from the world, till she 
has a ripe occasion for making known who she is. Certain later passages 
in the play seem to infer that she has already fallen in love with Duke Orsino 
from the descriptions she has had of him. 



34 TWELFTH NIGHT ; OR, ACT i. 

Vio. There is a fair behaviour in thee, captain ; 
And though that nature with a beauteous wall 
Doth oft close-in pollution, yet of thee 
I well believe thou hast a mind that suits 
With this thy fair and outward character. 
I pr'ythee, — and I'll pay thee bounteously, — 
Conceal me what I am ; and be my aid 
For such disguise as haply shall become 
The form of my intent. I'll serve this Duke : 
Thou shalt present me as an eunuch to him : ^ 
It may be worth thy pains ; for I can sing. 
And speak to him in many sorts of music^ 
That will allow me very worth his service.'' 
What else may hap, to time I will commit ; 
Only shape thou thy silence to my wit. 

Cap. Be you his eunuch, and your mute I'll be : 
When my tongue blabs, then let mine eyes not see. 

Vio. I thank thee : lead me on. \_Exeunt. 

Scene III. — A Room in Olivia's House, 

Enter Sir Toby Belch and Maria. 

Sir To. What a plague means my niece, to take the death 
of her brother thus ? I am sure care's an enemy to life. 
Mar. By my troth, Sir Toby, you must come in earlier o' 

6 This plan of Viola's was not pursued, as it would have been inconsist- 
ent with the plot of the play. She was presented as a page, not as an 
eunuch. 

7 " Will approve me worth his service " ; that is, " will pi-ove that / am 
worth," &c. This use of to allow for to approve is very common in old 
English ; and Shakespeare has it repeatedly. So in King Lear, ii. 4 : " O 
Heavens, if your sweet sway allow obedience," 



SCENE III. WHAT YOU WILL. 35 

nights : your cousin, ^ my lady, takes great exceptions to 
your ill hours. 

Sir To. Why, let her except before excepted. ^ 

Mar. Ay, but you must confine yourself within the mod- 
est limits of order. 

Sir To. Confine ! I'll confine myself no finer than I 
am : ^ these clothes are good enough to drink in ; and so be 
these boots too : an they be not, let them hang themselves 
in their own straps. 

Mar. That quafiing and drinking will undo you : I heard 
my lady talk of it yesterday; and of a foolish knight that 
you brought in one night here to be her wooer. 

Sir To. Who, Sir Andrew Aguecheek? 

Mar. Ay, he. 

Sir To. He's as tall a man ^ as any's in Illyria. 

Mar. What's that to the purpose ? 

Sir To. Why, he has three thousand ducats a year. 

Mar. Ay, but he'll have but a year in all these ducats : 
he's a very fool and a prodigal. 

Sir To. Fie, that you'll say so ! he plays o' the viol-de- 
gamboys,^ and speaks three or four languages word for word 
without book, and hath all the good gifts of nature. 

1 Cousin was used, not only for what we so designate, but also for nephew, 
niece, grandchild, and, indeed, kindred in general. 

2 The Poet here shows his familiarity with the technical language of the 
Law ; Sir Toby being made to run a whimsical play upon the old legal 
phrase, " those things being excepted which were before excepted." 

3 Sir Toby purposely misunderstands confine, taking it for refine. 

4 The use of tall for bold, valiant, stout, was common in Shakespeare's 
time, and occurs several times in his works. Sir Toby is evidently ban- 
tering with the word, Sir Andrew being equally deficient in spirit and in 
stature. 

5 Viol-de-gamboys appears to be a Tobyism for viol da gamba, an instru- 
ment much like the violoncello : so called because it was held between the 



36 TWELFTH NIGHT ; OR, ACT I. 

Mar. He hath, indeed, all most natural : ^ for, besides 
that he's a fool, he's a great quarreller; and, but that he 
hath the gift of a coward to allay the gust ^ he hath in quar- 
relling, 'tis thought among the prudent he would quickly 
have the gift of a grave. 

Sir To. By this hand, they are scoundrels and substrac- 
tors ^ that say so of him. Who are they ? 

Mar. They that add, moreover, he's drunk nightly in your 
company. 

Sir To. \ With drinking healths to my niece : I'll drink to 
her as long as there is a passage in my throat and drink in 
lUyria j he's a coward and a coistreP that will not drink to 
my niece till his brains turn o' the toe like a parish-top.'*^ 
What, wench ! Castiliano volto ;^^ for here comes Sir An- 
drew Agueface. 

Enter Sir Andrew Aguecheek. 
Sir And. Sir Toby Belch ; how now, Sir Toby Belch ! 

legs ; gamba being Italian for leg. According to Gifford, the instrument 
" was an indispensable piece of furniture in every fashionable house, where 
it hung up in the best chamber, much as the guitar does in Spain, and the 
violin in Italy, to be played on at will, and to fill up the void of conversa- 
tion. Whoever pretended to fashion affected an acquaintance with this 
instrument." 

6 Maria plays upon natural, which, in one of its senses, meant difool. See 
As You Like It, page 15, note 3. — There is also an equivoque in all most, 
one of the senses being almost. 

7 Gust is taste, from the Italian gusto ; not much used now, though its 
sense lives in disgust. 

8 Substractors is another Tobyism for detractors. 

9 Holinshed classes coistrels among the unwarlike followers of an army. 
It was thus used as a term of contempt. 

10 A large top was formerly kept in each village for the peasantry to 
amuse themselves with in frosty weather. " He sleeps like a town-top," is an 
old proverb. 

11 Meaning, " Put on a Castilian face " ; that is, grave, solemn looks. 



SCENE III, WHAT YOU WILL. Z7 

Sir To. Sweet Sir Andrew ! 

Sir And. Bless you, fair shrew. 

Mar. And you too, sir. 

Sir To. Accost, Sir Andrew, accost. ^^ 

Sir And. What's that? 

Sir To. My niece's chambermaid. 

Sir And. Good Mistress Accost, I desire better acquaint- 
ance. 

Mar. My name is Mary, sir. 

Sir And. Good Mistress Mary Accost, — 

Sir To. You mistake, knight : accost is front her, board 
her, woo her, assail her. 

Sir And. By my troth, I would not undertake her in this 
company. Is that the meaning of accost? 

Mar. Fare you well, gentlemen. 

Sir To. An thou let her part so,i3 sfj- Andrew, would 
thou mightst never draw sword again. 

Sir And. An you part so, mistress, I would I might never 
draw sword again. Fair lady, do you think you have fools 
in hand? 

Mar. Sir, I have not you by the hand. 

Sir And. Marry, but you shall have ; and here's my hand. 

Mar. Now, sir, thought is free : I pray you, bring your 
hand to the buttery-bar," and let it drink. ^^ 

12 Sir Toby speaks more learnedly than intelligibly here, using accost in 
its original sense. The word is from the French accoster, to come side by 
side, or to approach. Accost is seldom used thus, which accounts for Sir 
Andrew's mistake. 

13 Part for depart. A frequent usage. 

14 The buttery was formerly a place for all sorts of gastric refreshments, 
and a dry hand was considered a symptom of debility. — The relevancy of 
" thought is free " may be not very apparent. Perhaps the following from 
Lyly's Euphues, 1581, will illustrate it: " None, quoth she, can judge of wit 



38 TWELFTH NIGHT ; OR, ACT I. 

Sir And. Wherefore, sweet-heart? what's your meta- 
phor? 

Mar. It's dry, sir. 

Sir And. Why, I think so : I am not such an ass but I 
can keep my hand dry. But what's your jest ? 

Mar. A dry jest, sir. 

Sir And. Are you full of them ? 

Mar. Ay, sir, I have them at my fingers' ends : marry, 
now I let go your hand, I am barren. \_Exit. 

Sir To. O knight, thou lack'st a cup of canary : when did 
I see thee so put down ? 

Sir And. Never in your life, I think; unless you saw 
canary put me down. Methinks sometimes I have no more 
wit than a Christian or an ordinary man has : but I am a great 
eater of beef, and I believe that does harm to my wit.^^ 

Sir To. No question. 

Sir And. An I thought that, I'd forswear it. I'll ride 
home to-morrow. Sir Toby. 

Sir To. Pourquoi, my dear knight ? 

Sir And. What is pourquoi ? do or not do ? I would I 
had bestowed that time in the tongues that I have in fencing, 
dancing, and bear-baiting : O, had I but followed the Arts ! 

Sir To. Then hadst thou had an excellent head of 
hair.16 

but they that have it. Why, then, quoth he, dost thou think me a fool ? 
Thozight is free, my lord, quoth she." 

15 So in The Haven, of Health, 1584 : " Galen affirmeth that biefe maketh 
grosse bloude and engendreth melancholie, especially if it is much eaten, 
and if such as doe eat it be of a melancholy complexion." 

16 Sir Toby is quibbling between toiigues and tongs, the latter meaning, 
of course, the well-known instrument for curling the hair. The two words 
were often written, and probably sounded, alike, or nearly so. So in the in- 
troduction to The Faerie Qzieene : " O, helpe thou my weake wit, and 



SCENE III. WHAT YOU WILL. 39 

Sir And. Why, would that have mended my hair? 

Sir To. Past question ; for thou see'st it will not curl by 
nature. 

Sir And. But it becomes me well enough, does't not? 

Sir To. Excellent ; it hangs like flax on a distaff" ; and I 
hope to see a housewife take thee and spin it off". 

Sir And. Faith, I'll home to-morrow, Sir Toby : your 
niece will not be seen ; or, if she be, it's four to one she'll 
none of me : the Count ^"^ himself here hard by wooes 
her. 

Sir To. She'll none o' the Count : she'll not match above 
her degree, neither in estate, years, nor wit ; I have heard 
her swear't. Tut, there's life in't,i^ man. 

Sir Ajid. I'll stay a month longer. I am a fellow o' the 
strangest mind i' the world; I delight in masques and revels 
sometimes altogether. 

Sir To. Art thou good at these kickshawses,!^ knight? 

Sir And. As any man in Illyria, whatsoever he be, under 
the degree of my betters ; and yet I will not compare with 
a nobleman. 

Sir To. What is thy excellence in a galKard, knight ? 

Sir And. Faith, I can cut a caper. 



sharpen my dull tong." Here the word rhymes with long and wrong. For 
this explanation, which is not more ingenious than apt and just, I am in- 
debted to a private letter from Mr. Joseph Crosby. 

1'^ The titles Duke and Count are used indifferently of Orsino. The rea- 
son of this, if there be any, is not apparent. The Poet of course understood 
the difference between a duke and a count, well enough. White suggests 
that in a revisal of the play he may have concluded to change the title, and 
then, for some cause, left the change incomplete. 

18 Equivalent to " there is /zt*^^ in it." It was a phrase of the time. 

19 A Tobyism, probably, for kickshaws, an old word for trifles or kizick- 
knack-s ; said to be a corruption of the French quelque chose. 



40 TWELFTH NIGHT ; OR, . ACT I. 

Sir To. And I can cut the mutton to't.20 

Sir And. And I think I have the back-trick simply as 
strong as any man in Illyria. 

Sir To. Wherefore are these things hid? wherefore have 
these gifts a curtain before 'em ? are they like to take dust, 
like Mistress Mall's picture P^^ why dost thou not go to church 
in a galliard, and come home in a coranto?^^ My very walk 
should be a jig. What dost thou mean? is it a world to 
hide virtues in? I did think, by the excellent constitution 
of thy leg, it was form'd under the star of a galliard. 

Sir And. Ay, 'tis strong, and it does indifferent well in a 
flame-colour'd stock.^s Shall we set about some revels ? 

Sir To. What shall we do else ? were we not born under 
Taurus ? 

Sir And. Taurus ! that's sides and heart. 

Sir To. No, sir j it is legs and thighs.^^ Let me see thee 

20 A double pun is probably intended here ; the meaning being, " If you 
can do the man's part in a galliard, I can do the woman's." Mutton was 
sometimes used as a slang term for a woman. 

21 Mistress Mall was a very celebrated character of the Poet's time, who 
played many parts (not on the stage) in male attire. Her real name was 
Mary Frith, though commonly known as Moll Cutpurse. In 1610 a book 
was entered at the Stationers, called The Madde Prankes of Merry Moll of 
the Bankside, with her Walks in Man's Apparel, and to what purpose, hy ]oh.n 
Day. Middleton and Dekker wrote a comedy entitled The Roaring- Girl, 
of which she was the heroine. Portraits were commonly curtained to keep 
off the dust. 

22 Galliard and coranto are names of dances : the galliard, a lively, stir- 
ring dance, from a Spanish word signifying cheerful, gay ; the coranto, a 
quick dance for two persons, described as " traversing and running, as our 
country dance, but having twice as much in a strain." 

23 " A flame-colour'd stock " is a pretty emphatic sort of stocking. — " In- 
different well" is tolerably well. A frequent usage. 

24 Alluding to the medical astrology of the almanacs. Both the knights 
are wrong; the zodiacal sign Taurus having reference to the neck and 
throat. ^ The point se-ems to be that Sir Toby is poking fun at Sir Andrew's 
conceit of agility: " I can cut a caper." 



SCENE IV. WHAT YOU WILL. 4 1 

caper. [Sir And. dances.'] Ha ! higher : ha, ha ! excel- 
lent ! \_Exeunt. 

Scene IV. — An Apartment in the Duke's Palace. 
Enter Valentine, and Viola in Man's attire. 

VaL If the Duke continue these favours towards you, Ce- 
sario, you are like to be much advanced : he hath known you 
but three days, and aheady you are no stranger. 

Vio. You either fear his humour or my neghgence, that 
you call in question the continuance of his love : is he incon- 
stant, sir, in his favours? 

Val. No, believe me. 

Vio. I thank you. Here comes the Count. 

Enter the Duke, Curio, and Attendants. 

Duke. Who saw Cesario, ho? 

Vio. On your attendance, my lord \ here. 

Duke. Stand you awhile aloof. — Cesario, 
Thou know'st no less but all ; i I have unclasp'd 
To thee the book even of my secret soul : 
Therefore, good youth, address thy gait^ unto her; 
Be not denied access, stand at her doors. 
And tell them, there thy fixed foot shall grow 
Till thou have audience. 

Vio. Sure, my noble lord, 

1 That is, " no less than all." This use of but with the force of than is 
quite frequent in Shakespeare. In As You Like It, v. 2, page 126, we have 
five instances of it in one speech: "Your brother and my sister no sooner 
met, but they looked " ; &c. 

2 The meaning is, " direct thy cotirse," or thy steps. The Poet often uses 
to address in the sense of to make ready or prepare ; and here the meaning 
is much the same. 



42 TWELFTH NIGHT ; OR, ACT I. 

If she be so abandon'd to her sorrow- 
As it is spoke, she never will admit me. 

Duke. Be clamorous, and leap all civil bounds, 
Rather than make unprofited ^ return. 

Vio. Say I do speak with her, my lord, what then ? 

Duke. O, then unfold the passion of my love, 
Surprise her with discourse of my dear faith ! 
It shall become thee well to act my woes ; 
She will attend it better in thy youth 
Than in a nuncio of more grave aspect. 

Vio. I think not so, my lord. 

Duke. Dear lad, believe it j 

For they shall yet belie thy happy years. 
That say thou art a man : Diana's lip 
Is not more smooth and rubious ; ^ thy small pipe 
Is as the maiden's organ, shrill in sound ; 
And all is semblative a woman's part. 
I know thy constellation^ is right apt 
For this affair. — Some four or five attend him ; 
All, if you will ; for I myself am best 
When least in company. — Prosper well in this, 
And thou shalt live as freely as thy lord. 
To call his fortunes thine. 

Vio. I'll do my best 

To woo your lady : — \^Aside7\ yet, a barful strife ! ^ 
Whoe'er I woo, myself would be his wife. \_Exeunt. 

3 Unprofited for unprofitable. Shakespeare often uses the endings -able 
and -ed indiscriminately. So he has detested for detestable, unnumbered for 
imiu?nerable, unavoided for unavoidable, and many others. 

4 Rubious is red or rosy. This sense lives in ruby and rubicuftd. 

5 An astrological allusion. A man's constellation is the star that was in 
the ascendant at his birth, and so determined what he had a genius for. 

6 A strife or niidQxi?ik\ng full of bars or impediments. 



SCENE V. WHAT YOU WILL. 43 

Scene V. — A Room in Olrta's House. 
Enter Marl^ and the Clown. 

Mar. Nay, either tell me where thou hast been, or I will 
not open my lips so wide as a bristle may enter in way of 
thy excuse : my lady will hang thee for thy absence. 

Clo. Let her hang me : he that is well hang'd in this 
world needs to fear no colours. ^ 

Mar. Make that good. 

Clo. He shall see none to fear. 

Mar. A good lenten answer.^ I can tell thee where that 
saying was born, of, I fear no colours. 

Clo. Where, good Mistress Mary? 

Mar. In the wars ; and that may you be bold to say in 
your foolery. 

Clo. Well, God give them wisdom that have it ; and those 
that are fools, let them use their talents. 

Mar. Yet you will be hang'd for being so long absent j 
or, to be turn'd away, — is not that as good as a hanging to 
you? 

Clo. Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage ; and, 
for turning away, let Summer bear it out. 

Mar. You are resolute, then? 

Clo: Not so, neither ; but I am resolved on two points. 

1 Both the origin of this phrase and the meaning attached to it, notwith- 
standing Maria's explanation, are still obscure. Colours is still used ioxfiag; 
and probably it is here to be taken in a figurative sense for enemy. 

2 Probably a short or spare answer ; like the diet used in Lent. Lenten 
might be applied to any thing that marked the season of Lent. Thus Tay- 
lor the water-poet speaks of " a lenten top," which people amused them- 
selves with during Lent ; and in Hamlet we have, " what lenten entertain- 
ment the players shall receive from you." 



44 TWELFTH NIGHT ; OR, ACT I. 

Mar. That, if one break, the other will hold ; or, if both 
break, your gaskins fall.^ 

Clo, Apt, in good faith ; very apt. Well, go thy way ; 
if Sir Toby would leave drinking, thou wert as witty a piece 
of Eve's flesh as any in lUyria. 

Mar. Peace, you rogue, no more o' that. Here comes my 
lady : make your excuse wisely, you were best. \_Exit. 

Clo. Wit, an't be thy will, put me into good fooling ! 
Those wits that think they have thee do very oft prove fools ; 
and I, that am sure I lack thee, may pass for a wise man : 
for what says Quinapalus?'* Better a witty fool than a foolish 
wit. — 

Enter Olivia and Malvolio. 

God bless thee, lady ! 

Oli. Take the Fool away. 

Clo. Do you not hear, fellows ? Take away the lady. 

Oli. Go to, you're a dry Fool ; I'll no more of you : be- 
sides, you grow dishonest. 

Clo. Two faults, madonna, that drink and good counsel 
will amend : for, give the dry Fool drink, then is the Fool not 
dry : bid the dishonest man mend himself; if he mend, he is 
no longer dishonest ; if he cannot, let the botcher mend him. 
Any thing that's mended is but patch' d : virtue that trans- 
gresses is but patch'd with sin ; and sin that amends is but 
patch'd with virtue : if that this simple syllogism will serve, 
so ; if it will not, what remedy ? As there is no true dishonour 

3 Maria quibbles upon points. Gaskins was the name of a man's nether 
garment, large hose, or trousers ; and the points were the tags or laces 
which, being tied, held them up. 

4 Quittapalus is an imaginary author. To invent or to coin names and 
authorities for the nonce, seems to be a part of this Clown's humour. 



SCENE V, WHAT YOU WILL. 45 

but calamity, so beauty's a flower. — The lady bade take away 
the Fool ; therefore, I say again, take her away. 

Oli. Sir, I bade them take away you. 

Clo. Misprision in the highest degree ! Lady, cucullus non 
facit monachum ; ^ that's as much as to say, I wear not mot- 
ley in my brain. Good madonna, give me leave to prove you 
a fool. 

Oli. Can you do it? 

Clo, Dexteriously, good madonna. 

Oli. Make your proof. 

Clo. I must catechize you for it, madonna : good my 
mouse of virtue, answer me. 

Oli. Well, sir, for want of other idleness, I'll bide your 
proof. 

Clo. Good madonna, why mourn'st thou? 

Oli. Good Fool, for my brother's death. 

Clo. I think his soul is in Hell, madonna. 

Oli. I know his soul is in Heaven, Fool. 

Clo. The more fool, madonna, to mourn for your brother's 
soul being in Heaven. — Take away the fool, gentlemen. 

Oli. What think you of this Fool, Malvolio ? doth he not 
mend ? 

Mai. Yes, and shall do till the pangs of death shake him : 
infirmity, that decays the wise, doth ever make the better 
fool. 

Clo. God send you, sir, a speedy infirmity, for the better 
increasing your folly ! Sir Toby will be sworn that I am no 
fox ; but he will not pass his word for twopence that you are 
no fool. 



5 A common proverb ; literally, " a hood does not make a monk." 
Shakespeare has it elsewhere. 



4.6 TWELFTH NIGHT ; OR, ACT I. 

O/i. How say you to that, Malvolio ? 

Ma/. I marvel your ladyship takes delight in such a bar- 
ren rascal : I saw him put down the other day with an ordi- 
nary fool, that has no more brain than a stone. Look you 
now, he's out of his guard already; unless you laugh and 
minister occasion to him, he is gagg'd. I protest, I take 
those wise men, that crow so at these set kind of Fools, to 
be no better than the Fools' zanies.^ 

Oil. O, you are sick of self-love, Malvolio, and taste with 
a distemper' d appetite. To be generous, guiltless, and of 
free disposition, is to take those things for bird-bolts ^ that 
you deem cannon-bullets : there is no slander in an allow'd 
Fool,^ though he do nothing but rail ; nor no railing in a 
known discreet man, though he do nothing but reprove. 

C/o. Now Mercury endue thee with leasing,^ for thou 
speak'st well of Fools ! 

6 The zany in Shakespeare's day was the attenuated mime of the mimic. 
He was the servant or attendant of the professional clown, who accompanied 

, him on the stage or in the ring, attempting to imitate his tricks, and adding 
to the general merriment by his ludicrous failures and comic imbecility. It 
is this characteristic, not merely of mimicry, but of weak and abortive mim- 
icry, that gives its distinctive meaning to the word, and colours it with a 
special tinge of contempt. This feature of the early stage has descended to 
our own times, and may still be found in the performances of the circus. 
We have ourselves seen the clown and the zany in the ring together ; the 
clown doing clever tricks, the zany provoking immense laughter by his ludi- 
crous failures in attempting to imitate them. — Edinburgh Review, July, 
1869. 

7 Bird-bolts were short thick arrows with obtuse ends, used for shooting 
young rooks and other birds. 

8 An allow'd Fool was the domestic or court Fool, like Touchstone in 
As You Like It ; that is, the jester by profession, who dressed in motley ; 
with whom folly was an art ; and whose functions are so admirably set forth 
by Jaques in the play just mentioned, ii. 7. 

9 The Clown means, that unless Olivia lied she could not " speak well of 
Fools " ; therefore he prays Mercury to endue her with leasing. Leasing 



SCENE V. WHAT YOU WILL. 47 

Re-enter Maria. 

Mar. Madam, there is at the gate a young gentleman 
much desires to speak with you. 

Oli. From the Count Orsino, is it? 

Mar. I know not, madam : 'tis a fair young man, and 
well attended. 

on. Who of my people hold him in delay ? 

Mar. Sir Toby, madam, your kinsman. 

Oli. Fetch him off, I pray you ; he speaks nothing but 
madman : fie on him ! [ Exit Maria.] — Go you, Mal- 
volio : if it be a suit from the Count, I am sick, or not at 
home ; what you will, do dismiss it. \_Exit Malvolio.] — • 
Now you see, sir, how your fooling grows old, and people 
dislike it. 

Clo. Thou hast spoke for us, madonna, as if thy eldest 
son should be a Fool, — whose skull Jove cram with brains ! 
for here comes one of thy kin has a most weak pia 
mater.^^ 

Enter Sir Toby Belch. 

Oli. By mine honour, half drunk. — What is he at the 
gate, cousin? 

Sir To. A gentleman. 

Oli. A gentleman ! what gentleman ? 

Sir To. 'Tis a gentleman here — a plague o' these pickle- 
herring ! 11 — How now, sot ! ^^ 

was about the same as our fibbing. As Mercury was the God of cheats and 
liars, the Clown aptly invokes his aid. 

10 The membrane that covers the brain ; put for the brain itself. 

11 Pickled herrings seem to have been a common relish in drunken 
sprees. Gabriel Harvey says of Robert Greene, the profligate dramatist, 
that he died " of a surfett of pickle herringe and Rennishe wine." 

12 Sot is used by the Poet for fool; as in The Merry Wives Dr. Gains 
says, " Have you make-a de sot of us? " 



48 TWELFTH NIGHT ; OR, ACT I. 

Clo. Good Sir Toby ! — 

on. Cousin, cousin, how have you come so early by this 
lethargy ? 

Sir To. Lechery ! I defy ^^ lechery. There's one at the 
gate. 

Oli. Ay, marry, what is he ? 

Sir To. Let him be the Devil, an he will, I care not : 
give me faith, say I. Well, it's all one. \_Exit. 

Oli. What's a drunken man like, Fool? 

Clo. Like a drown'd man, a fool, and a madman : one 
draught above heat makes him a fool; the second mads 
him ; and a third drowns him. 

Oli. Go thou and seek the crowner, and let him sit o' my 
cOz j for he's in the third degree of drink, — he's drown'd : 
go, look after him. 

Clo. He is but mad yet, madonna; and the Fool shall 
look to the madman. \^Exit. 

Re-enter Malvolio. 

Mai. Madam, yond young fellow swears he will speak 
with you. I told him you were sick ; he takes on him to 
understand so much, and therefore comes to speak with 
you : I told him you were asleep ; he seems to have a fore- 
knowledge of that too, and therefore comes to speak with 
you. What is to be said to him, lady? he's fortified against 
any denial. 

Oli. Tell him he shall not speak with me. 

Mai. 'Has been told so ; and he says, he'll stand at your 
door like a sheriff's post,!^ ^nd be the supporter to a bench, 
but he'll speak with you. 

13 Todefy-was often used for to renounce, or abjure. 

14 The Sheriffs formerly had painted posts set up at their doors on which 
proclamations and placards were affixed. 



SCENE V. WHAT YOU WILL. 49 

Oli. What kind o' man is he ? 

Mai. Why, of man kind. 

Oli. What manner of man ? 

Mai. Of very ill manner ; he'll speak with you, will you 
or no. 

OH. Of what personage and years is he ? 

Mai. Not yet old enough for a man, nor young enough 
for a boy ; as a squash is before 'tis a peascod, or a codling 
when 'tis almost an apple : ^^ 'tis with him e'en standing 
water, between boy and man. He is very well-favour'd, and 
he speaks very shrewishly ; ^^ one would think his mother's 
milk were scarce out of him. 

Oli. Let him appoach : call in my gentlewoman. 

Mai. Gentlewoman, my lady calls. \_Exit. 

Re-enter Maria. 

Oli. Give me my veil : come, throw it o'er my face. 
We'll once more hear Orsino's embassy. 

Enter Viola. 

Vio. The honourable lady of the house, which is she ? 

Oli. Speak to me ; I shall answer for her. Your will ? 

Vio. Most radiant, exquisite, and unmatchable beauty, — 
I pray you, tell me if this be the lady of the house, for I 
never saw her : I would be loth to cast away my speech ; 
for, besides that it is excellently well penn'd, I have taken 

15 A codling-, according to Gifford, means an involucrum or kell, and 
was used by our old writers for that early stage of vegetation, when the fruit, 
after shaking off the blossom, begins to assume a globular and determinate 
shape. The original of squash was used of such young vegetables as were 
eaten in the state of immaturity. 

16 Shrewishly is sharply, tartly ; like a shrew. So, of old, shrewd vi\^2^\i 
keen or biting. 



50 TWELFTH NIGHT; OR, ACT I. 

great pains to con it. Good beauties, let me sustain no 
scorn : I am very comptible ^^ even to the least sinister usage. 

on. Whence came you, sir? 

Vio. I can say little more than I have studied, and that 
question's out of my part. Good gentle one, give me mod- 
est assurance if you be the lady of the house, that I may 
proceed in my speech. 

OH, Are you a comedian ? 

Vio. No, my profound heart : and yet, by the very fangs 
of malice I swear I am not that I play. Are you the lady 
of the house ? 

Oli. If I do not usurp myself, I am. 

Vio, Most certain, if you are she, you do usurp yourself; 
for what is yours to bestow is not yours to reserve. But this 
is from my comrnission : I will on with my speech in your 
praise, and then show you the heart of my message. 

Oli. Come to what is important in't : I forgive you the 
praise. 

Vio. Alas, I took great pains to study it, and 'tis poetical. 

Oli. It is the more like to be feigned : I pray you, keep 
it in. I heard you were saucy at my gates ; and allow'd 
your approach rather to wonder at you than to hear you. If 
you be mad, be gone ; if you have reason, be brief : 'tis not 
that time of Moon with me to make one in so skipping a 
dialogue. 

Mar. Will you hoist sail, sir ? here lies your way. 

Vio. No, good swabber ; I am to hull here ^^ a little longer. 
— Some mollification for your giant,i^ sweet lady. 

I'T^ Cofnptible is susceptible, or sensitive. The proper meaning of the word 
is accountable. 

18 To hull is a nautical term, probably meaning to haul in sails and lay- 
to, without coming to anchor. Swabber is also a nautical term, used of one 
who attends to the swabbing or cleaning of the deck. 



SCENE V. WHAT YOU WILL. 5 1 

OH. Tell me your mind. 

Vio. I am a messenger.^o 

Oli. Sure, you have some hideous matter to deliver, when 
the courtesy of it is so fearful. Speak your office. 

Vio. It alone concerns your ear. I bring no overture of 
war, no taxation of homage : I hold the olive in my hand ; 
my words are as full of peace as matter. 

Oli. Yet you began rudely. What are you ? what would 
you? 

Vio. The rudeness that hath appear'd in me have I learn'd 
from my entertainment. What I am, and what I would, are 
as secret as maidenhood : to your ears, divinity ; to any 
other's, profanation. 

Oli. Give us the place alone : we will hear this divinity. 
\Exit Maria.] — Now, sir, what is your text ? 

Vio. Most sweet lady, — 

Oli. A comfortable 21 doctrine, and much may be said of 
it. Where lies your text ? 

Vio. In Orsino's bosom. 

Oli. In his bosom ! In what chapter of his bosom ? 

Vio. To answer by the method, in the first of his heart. 

Oli. O, I have read it : it is heresy. Have you no more 
to say? 

Vio. Good madam, let me see your face. 

Oli. Have you any commission from your lord to nego- 
tiate with my face ? You are now out of your text : but we 

19 Ladies in romance are guarded by giants. Viola, seeing the waiting- 
maid so eager to oppose her message, entreats Olivia to pacify her giant, 
alluding, ironically, to the small stature of Maria. 

20 Viola's being a messenger implies that it is not her own mind, but 
that of the sender, that she is to tell. 

21 Comfortable for comforting ; the passive form with the active sense. 
Often so, both in this and in many other words. 



52 TWELFTH NIGHT; OR, ACT I. 

will draw the curtain, and show you the picture. Look you, 
sir, such a one I was this present : ^2 is't not well done ? 
^"^ [ Unveiling. 

I Via. Excellently done, if God did all. 
■ Oli. 'Tis in grain, sir ; 'twill endure wind and weather. 

Via. 'Tis beauty truly blent, whose red and white 
Nature's own sweet and cunning hand laid on ; 
Lady, you are the cruell'st she alive, 
If you will lead these graces to the grave. 
And leave the world no copy. ) 

Oli. O sir, I will not be so hard-hearted ; I will give out 
divers schedules of my beauty : it shall be inventoried, and 
every particle and utensil labell'd to my .will : <as, item, two 
lips, indifferent red ; ^^ item, two gray eyes,^'* with lids to 
them ; item, one neck, one chin, and so forth,; Were you 
sent hither to 'praise me?^^ 

Vio. I see you what you are, -r- you are too proud j 
But, if you were the Devil, you are fair. 
My lord and master loves you : O, such love 
Could be but recompensed, though you were crown'd 
The nonpareil of beauty ! 

Oli. How does he love me ? 

Vio. With adorations, with fertile tears,^^ 

22 It is to be borne in mind that the idea of a picture is continued ; the 
meaning being, " behold the picture of me, such as I am at the present 
moment." 

23 "Indifferent red " is tolerably red. See page 40, note 23. 

24 Blue eyes were called gray in the Poet's time. See As You Like It, 
page 92, note 45. 

25 To appraise me, or set a value upon me ; referring to the inventory she 
has just given of her graces. 

26 Fertile appears to be used here in the sense of copious. Shakespeare 
ha.s fruitful in a like sense. So in Hamlet, i. 2 : " No, nor the fruitful river 
in the eye." 



SCENE V. WHAT YOU WILL. 53 

With groans that thunder love, with sighs of fire. 

Oli. Your lord does know my mind ; I cannot love him : 
Yet I suppose him virtuous, know him noble, 
Of great estate, of fresh and stainless youth ; 
In voices well divulged,^^ free, learn'd, and valiant ; 
And, in dimension and the shape of nature, 
A gracious person : but yet I cannot love him ; 
He might have took his answer long ago. 

Vio. If I did love you in my master's flame, 
With such a suffering, such a deadly love, 
In your denial I would find no sense ; 
I would not understand it. _- 

Oli. Why, what would you ? 

Vio. Make me a willow cabin at your gate, 
And call upon my soul within the house ; 
Write loyal cantons ^^ of contemned love, 
And sing them loud even in the dead of night ; 
Holla your name to the reverberate hills. 
And make the babbling gossip of the air^a 
Cry out, Olivia I O, you should not rest 
Between the elements of air and earth, 
But you should pity me ! 

Oli. You might do much. What is your parentage ? 

Vio. Above my fortunes, yet my state is well : 
I am a gentleman. 

Oli. Get you to your lord ; 

I cannot love him : let him send no more ; 

27 Meaning, perhaps, well spoken of, well voiced in the public mouth ; or 
it may mean well reputed for knowledge in the languages, which was 
esteemed a great accomplishment in the Poet's time. 

28 Cantons is the old English word for ca?itos, 

29 A Shakespearian expression for echo. 



54 TWELFTH NIGHT ; OR, ACT I. 

Unless, perchance, you come to me again, 
To tell me how he takes it. Fare you well : 
I thank you for your pains : spend this for me. 

Vio. I am no fee'd post, lady ; keep your purse ; 
My master, not myself, lacks recompense. 
Love make his heart of flint, that you shall love ; 
And let your fervour, like my master's, be 
Placed in contempt ! Farewell, fair cruelty. \_Exit. 

Oli. What is your parentage ? — 
Above my fortunes, yet my state is well : 
I am a gentleman. I'll be sworn thou art ; 
Thy tongue, thy face, thy limbs, actions, and spirit, 
Do give thee fivefold blazon. — Not too fast ; — 
Soft, soft ! — 

Unless the master were the man.^^ — How now ! 
Even so quickly may one catch the plague ? 
Methinks I feel this youth's perfections 
With an invisible and subtle stealth 
To creep in at mine eyes. Well, let it be. — 
What, ho, MalvoHo ? 

Re-enter Malvolio. 

MaL Here, madam, at your service. 

Oli. Run after that same peevish ^^ messenger, 
The County's man ; he left this ring behind him, 
Would I or not : tell him I'll none of it. 
Desire him not to flatter with his lord, 

^0 Soft! was in frequent use, as here, for stay ! not too fast! Olivia 
means, apparently, that her passion is going ahead too fast, unless Orsino 
were its object, who is Viola's master. 

31 Peevisli was commonly used for foolish or childish ; hence, perhaps, 
the meaning it now bears oi fretful. It may have either meaning here, or 
both. 



SCENE I. WHAT YOU WILL. 55 

Nor hold him up with hopes ; I am not for him : 
If that the youth will come this way to-morrow, 
I'll give him reasons for't. Hie thee, Malvolio. 

Mai. Madam, I will. \_Exit 

OH. I do I know not what ; and fear to find 
Mine eye too great a flatterer for my mind.*^^ 
Fate, show thy force : ourselves we do not owe ; -^^ 
What is decreed must be, — and be this so ! \jExit. 



ACT II. 



Scene I. — TJie Sea-coast. 
Enter Antonio and Sebastian. 

Ant. Will you stay no longer ? nor will you not that I go 
with you ? 

Seb. By your patience, no. My stars shine darkly over 
me : the malignancy of my fate might perhaps distemper 
yours ; therefore I shall crave of you your leave that I may 
bear my evils alone : it were a bad recompense for your love, 
to lay any of them on you. 

Ant. Let me yet know of you whither you are bound. 

Seb. No, sooth, sir : my determinate voyage is mere ex- 

32 She fears that her eyes have formed so flattering an idea of Cesario, 
that she will not have the strength of mind to resist the impression. 

33 We are not our own masters ; we cannot govern ourselves. Owe for 
own, possess^ or have; as usual. 



56 TWELFTH NIGHT ; OR, ACT II. 

travagancy.i But I perceive in you so excellent a touch of 
modesty, that you will not extort from me what I am willing^ 
to keep in ; therefore it charges me in manners the rather to 
express myself.^ You must know of me, then, Antonio, my 
name is Sebastian, which I called Roderigo. My father was 
that Sebastian of Messaline whom I know you have heard of. 
He left behind him myself and a sister, both born in an hour : 
if the Heavens had been pleased, would we had so ended ! 
but you, sir, alter' d that ; for some hour before you took me 
from the breach of the sea was my sister drown'd. 

A7it Alas the day ! 

Sebi A lady, sir, though it was said she much resembled 
me, w'as yet of many accounted beautifuH but, though I 
could not, with such an estimable wonder, over-far believe 
that,^ yet thus far I will boldly publish her, —f- she bore a mind 
that envy could not but call fair, j She is drown'd already, sir, 
with salt water, though I seem to drown her remembrance ' 
again with more. 

Ant. Pardon me, sir, your bad entertainment. 

Seb. O good Antonio, forgive me your trouble ! 

Ant If you will not murder me for my love,^ let me be 
your servant. 

1 " The purpose of my voyage ends with the voyage itself," or, " I am 
traveUing merely for the sake of travel." Extravagancy is used in the Latin 
sense of going at large ; as in Hamlet, i. i : " Th' extravagant and erring 
spirit hies to his confine." 

2 Willing in the sense of choosing, wishing, or preferring. 

3 To declare or unfold myself, Sebastian holds himself the more bound 
to give the information, inasmuch as Antonio's delicacy keeps him from 
asking, or from being inquisitive. 

■* The meaning is, " Though I could not, when compared with a person 
of such admirable beauty, over-far believe that I resembled her." 

5 This may refer to what is thus delivered by Sir Walter Scott in The 
Pirate : When Mordaunt has rescued Cleveland from the sea, and is trying 



SCENE II. WHAT YOU WILL. 5/ 

Seb. If you will not undo what you have done, that is, 
kill him whom you have recover'd desire it not. Fare ye 
well at once : my bosom is full of kindness ; and I am yet so 
near the manners of my mother, that, upon the least occasion 
more, mine eyes will tell tales of me. I am bound to the 
Count Orsino's Court : farewell. \_Exit. 

Ant. The gentleness of all the gods go with thee ! 
I have many enemies in Orsino's Court, 
Else would I very shortly see thee there : 
But, come what may, I do adore thee so. 
That danger shall seem sport, and I will go. \Exit 



Scene II. — A Street 
Enter Viola, yixiNOLio following. 

Mai. Were not you even now with the Countess Olivia? 

Vio. Even now, sir; on a moderate pace I have since 
arrived but hither. 

Mai. She returns this ring to you, sir : you might have 
saved me my pains, to have taken it away yourself. She 
adds, moreover, that you should put your lord into a despe- 
rate assurance she will none of him : and one thing more, that 
you be never so hardy to come again in his affairs, unless it 
be to report your lord's taking of this. Receive it so.^ 

to revive him, Bryce the pedler says to him, — " Are you mad? you, that 
have so long lived in Zetland, to risk the saving of a drowning man ? Wot 
ye not, if you bring him to life again, he will be sure to do you some capital 
injury ? " Sir Walter suggests in a note that this inhuman maxim was 
probably held by the islanders of the Orkneys, as an excuse for leaving all 
to perish alone who were shipwrecked upon their coasts, to the end that 
there might be nothing to hinder the plundering of their goods ; which of 
course could not well be, if any of the owners survived. 

1 "Receive it so " is understand it so. Take is still used in the same way. 



58 TWELFTH NIGHT ; OR, ACT II. 

Vio. She took no ring of me : I'll none of it. 

Mai. Come, sir, you peevishly threw it to her; and her 
will is, it should be so return'd : if it be worth stooping for, 
there it lies in your eye ; if not, be it his that finds it. 

[Exit. 

Vio. I left no ring with her : what means this lady ? 
Fortune forbid, my outside have not charm 'd her ! 
She made good view of me ; indeed, so much, 
That, as methought, her eyes had lost her tongue,^ 
For she did speak in starts distractedly. 
She loves me, sure ; the cunning of her passion 
Invites me in this churHsh messenger. 
None of my lord's ring ! why, he sent her none. 
I am the man : if it be so, — as 'tis, — 
Poor lady, she were better love a dream. 
Disguise, I see thou art a wickedness, 
Wherein the pregnant ^ enemy does much. 
How easy is it for the proper- false '^ 
In woman's waxen hearts to set their forms ! 
Alas, our frailty is the cause, not we ! 
For, such as we are made of, such we be.^ 
How will this fadge?^ my master loves her dearly; 



2 Her eyes were so charmed that she lost the right use of her tongue, and 
let it run as if it were divided from her judgment. 

3 Pregnant is quick-witted, cunning . 

4 Proper is here used in the sense of handsome : the meaning of the pas- 
sage being, " How easy it is for handsome deceivers to print their forms in 
the waxen hearts of women." Such compounds as proper-false are not 
unusual in Shakespeare. Beauteous-evil occurs in this play. 

5 Such evidently refers to frailty in the preceding line ; the sense being, 
" Since we are made of frailty, we must needs be frail." 

6 Fadge, meaning yf/ or suit, was a polite word in Shakespeare's time, and 
moved, without question, in the best circles. 



SCENE III. WHAT YOU WILL. 59 

And I, poor monster,''' fond as much on him, 

As she, mistaken, seems to dote on me. 

What will become of this ? As I am man, 

My state is desperate for my master's love ; 

As I am woman, — now, alas the day ! — 

What thriftless sighs shall poor Olivia breathe ! 

O Time, thou must untangle this, not I ; 

It is too hard a knot for me t' untie ! \_Exif. 

Scene III. — A Room in Olivia's House. 
Enter Sir Toby Belch a7id Sir Andrew Aguecheek. 

Sir To. Approach, Sir Andrew : not to be a-bed after 
midnight is to be up betimes : and diluculo surge7'e^ thou 
know' St, — 

Sir And. Nay, by my troth, I know not : but I know, to 
be up late is to be up late. 

Sir To. A false conclusion : I hate it as an unfill'd can. 
To be up after midnight, and to go to bed then, is early : so 
that, to go to bed after midnight, is to go to bed betimes. 
Does not our life consist of the four elements?^ 

Sir And. Faith, so they say ; but I think it rather con- 
sists of eating and drinking. 

Sir To. Thou'rt a scholar : let us therefore eat and drink. 
— Maria, I say ! a stoup^ of wine ! 

^ Viola calls herself monster from the fact of her being, in a manner, both 
woman and man. 

1 Diluculo surgere, saluberrimum est. This adage is in Lily's Grammar, 
It means, " To rise betimes is very wholesome." 

2 The four elements referred to are earth, water, air, and fire ; the right 
mixing of which was suposed to be the condition of health in body and 
mind. 

3 Stoup is an old word for cup ; often used by the Poet, 



6o TWELFTH NIGHT ; OR, ACT 11. 

Sir And. Here comes the Fool, i' faith. 
Enter the Clown. 

Clo. How now, my hearts ! did you never see the picture 
of We Three ?^ 

Sir To. Welcome, ass. Now let's have a catch. 

Sir And. By my troth, the Fool has an excellent breast.^ 
I had rather than forty shillings I had such a leg, and so 
sweet a breath to sing, as the Fool has. — In sooth, thou wast 
in very gracious foohng last night, when thou spokest of Pi- 
grogromitus, of the Vapians passing the equinoctial of Queu- 
bus : 'twas very good, i'faith. I sent thee sixpence for thy 
leman : ^ hadst it ? 

Clo. I did impeticos thy gratillity ; '^ for Malvolio's nose is 
no whipstock ; my lady has a white hand, and the Myrmidons 
are no bottle-ale houses. 

Sir And. Excellent ! why, this is the best fooling, when 
all is done. Now, a song. 

Sir To. Come on ; there is sixpence for you : let's have a 
song. 
■ Sir And. There's a testril ^ of me too : if one knight give 



•* Alluding to an old common sign representing two fools or loggerheads, 
under which was inscribed, " We three loggerheads be"; the point of the 
joke being, of c ourse, that the spectator was the third. 

5 Breast was often used for voice in the Poet's time. Thus we have the 
phrase, " singing men well-breasted." This use of the word grew from the 
form of the breast having much to do with the quality of the voice. 

6 Leman is mistress or sweetheart. 

7 Impetticoat, or impocket, thy gratuity. Some have complained seriously 
that they could not understand the Clown in this scene ; which is shrewd 
proof they did not understand the Poet ! 

8 The testril or testern was originally a French coin, of sixpence value, or 
thereabouts ; so called from having a teste or head stamped upon it. 



SCENE III. WHAT YOU WILL. 6l 

Clo. Would you have a love-song, or a song of good life ?^ 

Sir To, A love-song, a love-song. 

Sir And. Ay, ay : I care not for good life. 

SoNG.io 

Clo. O mistress mine, where are you roaming? 
O, stay and hear; your true-love's coming, 

That can sing both high and low : 
Trip no further, pretty sweeting; 
Journeys end in lovers' meeting, 
Every wise man's son doth know. 

Sir And. Excellent good, i' faith. 
Sir To. Good, good. 

Clo. What is love ? 'tis not hereafter ; 

Present mirth hath present laughter ; 

Wliat's to come is still zmsure : 
In delay there lies no plenty ; 
Then come kiss me, sw eet- and- twenty P- 

Youth's a stuff will not endure. 

Sir And. A mellifluous voice, as I am true knight. 

Sir To. A contagious breath. 

Sir And. Very sweet and contagious, i'faith. 

9 That is, a civil and virtuous song ; so described in The Mad Pranks of 
Robin Goodfellow. 

w This song probably v^as not written by Shakespeare. Chappell, in 
his Popular Music of the Olden Tiine, says the tune is in Queen Elizabeth's 
Virginal Book, arranged by Byrd. He also says it was printed in 1599 ; and 
from this he concludes " either that Shakespeare's Twelfth Night was writ- 
ten in or before that year, or that in accordance with the then prevailing 
custom, O mistress miiie was an old song, introduced into the play." Dyce 
thinks "the latter supposition is doubtless the true one." 

11 Sweet-and-twenty appears to have been an old term of endearment. 



62 TWELFTH NIGHT ; OR, ACT II. 

Sir To. To hear by the nose, it is dulcet in contagion. 
But shall we make the welkin dance indeed ? ^^ shall we 
rouse the night-owl in a catch that will draw three souls out 
of one weaver? ^^ shall we do that? 

Sir And. An you love me, let's do't : I am dog at a ' 
catch. 

Clo. By'r Lady, sir, and some dogs will catch well. 

Sir And. Most certain. Let our catch be. Thou knave. 

Clo. Hold thy peace, thou knave, knight? I shall be 
constrained in't to call thee knave, knight. 

Sir And. 'Tis not the first time I have constrained one to 
call me knave. Begin, Fool : it begins. Hold thy peace. 

Clo. I shall never begin, if I hold my peace. 

'Sir And. Good, i'faith. Come, begin. 

\They sing the catch. 
Enter Maria. 

Mar. What a caterwauling do you keep here ! If my lady 
have not call'd up her steward Malvolio, and bid him turn 
you out of doors, never trust me. 

Sir To. My lady's a Cataian,!^ we are politicians ; Mal- 
volio's a Peg-a- Ramsey, and Three merry men be we. Am 
not I consanguineous? am I not of her blood? Tilly- vally, 
lady ! ^^ — [Sings.] There dwelt a man in Babylon, lady, lady I 

Clo. Beshrew me, the knight's in admirable fooling. 

Sir And. Ay, he does well enough if he be disposed, and 

12 Drink till the sky seems to turn round. 

13 Shakespeare represents weavers as much given to harmony in his 
time. Sir Toby meant that the catch should be so harmonious that it would 
hale the soul out of a weaver thrice over. 

1* This word generally signified a sharper. Sir Toby is too drunk for 
precision, and uses it merely as a term of reproach. 

1^ An interjection of contempt, equivalent \.o fiddle-faddle. 



SCENE III. WHAT YOU WILL. 63 

SO do I too : he does it with a better grace, but I do it more 
natural. 

Sir To. [Sings.] O^ ^^ the twelfth day of December, ^'^ — 

Mar. For the love o' God, peace ! 

Enter Malvolio. 

Mai. My masters, are you mad ? or what are you ? Have 
you no wit, manners, nor honesty, but to gabble like tinkers 
at this time of night? Do you make an alehouse of my lady's 
house, that ye squeak out your coziers' ^^ catches without 
any mitigation or remorse. of voice? Is there no respect of 
place, persons, nor time, in you ? 

Sir To. We did keep time, sir, in our catches. Snick- 
up !i9 

Mai. Sir Toby, I must be round ^^ with you. My lady 
bade me tell you, that, though she harbours you as her kins- 
man, she's nothing allied to your disorders. If you can sep- 
arate yourself and your misdemeanours, you are welcome to 

16 This is not the interjectional O, but the elided preposition on or of. 

1'^ With Sir Toby as wine goes in music comes out, and fresh songs keep 
bubbling up in his memory as he waxes mellower. A similar thing occurs 
in 2 Henry IV., where Master Silence grows merry and musical amidst his 
cups in " the sweet of the night." Of the ballads referred to by Sir Toby, 
O' the twelfth day of December is entirely lost. Percy has one stanza of There 
dwelt a man in Babylo7i, which he describes as " a poor dull performance, 
and very long." Three merry men be we seems to have been the burden of 
several old songs, one of which was called Robi?z Hood arid the Ta?i?zer. 
Peg-a-Ramsey, or Peggy Ramsey, was an old popular tune which had several 
ballads fitted to it. Thou kiiave was a catch which, says Sir John Hawkins, 
" appears to be so contrived that each of the singers calls the other knave 
in turn." 

18 Coziers is botchers, whether botching with the needles or with awls. 

19 Snick-up was an exclamation . of contempt, equivalent to "Go hang 
yourself," or " go and be hanged." 

20 Round is downright or plain-spt. 



64 TWELFTH NIGHT ; OR, ACT II. 

the house ; if not, an it would please you to take leave of 
her, she is very willing to bid you farewell. 

Sir To. [Sings.] Farewell^ dear hearty since I must needs 
be gone?^ 

Mar, Nay, good Sir Toby. 

Clo. [Sings.] His eyes do show his days are almost done. 

Mai. Is't even so ? 

Sir To. [Sings.] But I will never die, 

Clo, Sir Toby, there you lie. 

Mai. This is much credit to you. 

Sir To. [Sings.] Shall I bid him go ? 

Clo. [Sings.] What an if you do? 

Sir To. [Sings.] Shall I bid him go, and spare not? 

Clo. [Sings.] O, no, no, no, no, you dare not. 

Sir To. Out o' time, sir? ye He. Art any more than a 
steward? Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there 
shall be no more cakes and ale ? 

Clo. Yes, by Saint Anne ; and ginger shall be hot i' the 
mouth too. 

Sir To. Thou'rt i' the right. — Go, sir, rub your chain 
with crumbs.22 — A stoup of wine, Maria ! 

Mai. Mistress Mary, if you prized my lady's favour at any 



21 This is the first Une of an old ballad, entitled Corydo?i's Farewell to 
Phillis. It was inserted in Percy's Religues from an ancient miscellany, 
called The Golden Garland of Priiicely Delights. The musical dialogue 
that follows between Sir Toby and the Clown is adapted to their purpose 
from the first two stanzas of the ballad, 

22 Stewards anciently wore a chain of silver or gold, as a mark of superi- 
ority, a^did other principal servants. Wolsey's chief cook is described by 
Cavendish as wearing " velvet or satin with a chain of gold." One of the 
methods used to clean gilt plate was rubbing it with crumbs. So in Web- 
ster's Duchess of Malfi : " Yea, and the chippings of the buttery fly after him, 
to scour his gold ckain." 



SCENE III. WHAT YOU WILL. 65 

thing more than contempt, you would not give means for this 
uncivil rule : she shall know of it, by this hand. [_Extf. 

Mar. Go shake your ears.-^ 

Sir And. 'Twere as good a deed as to drink when a 
man's a-hungry, to challenge him the field, and then to 
break promise with him, and make a fool of him. 

Sir To. Do't, knight : I'll write thee a challenge ; or I'll 
deliver thy indignation to him by word of mouth. 

Mar. Sweet Sir Toby, be patient for to-night : since the 
youth of the Count's was to-day with my lady, she is much 
out of quiet. For Monsieur Malvolio, let me alone with him : 
if I do not gull him into a nayword,^^ and make him a com- 
mon recreation, do not think I have wit enough to lie straight 
in my bed : I know I can do it. 

Sir And. Possess us,^^ possess us ; tell us something of him. 

3far. Marry, sir, sometimes he is a kind of Puritan. 

Sir And. O, if I thought that, I'd beat him hke a dog ! 

Sir To. What, for being a Puritan? thy exquisite reason, 
dear knight ? 

Sir And. I have no exquisite reason for't, but I have rea- 
son good enough. 

Mar. The Devil a Puritan that he is, or any thing con- 
stantly, but a time-pleaser ; an affection'd ass,^^ that cons 
State without book, and utters it by great swaths : ^" the best 

23 " Shake your ears" is probably used as a metaphor implying that Mal- 
volio has long ears ; in other words, that he is an ass. 

24 Nay-word here means by-word or laughing-stock. So defined in an old 
dictionary. Elsewhere the Poet has it in the sense of watch-word. 

25 Possess for ittform ; a very frequent usage. See The Merchant, page 
97, note 12. 

26 An affected ass. Affection was often iised for affectation. 

27 By great parcels or heaps. Swaths are the rows of grass left by the 
scythe of the mower. Maria means that he is full of political strut, and 
spouts arguments of State by rote. 



66 TWELFTH night; or, act II. 

persuaded of himself, so cramm'd, as he thinks, with excel- 
lencies, that it is his ground of faith, that all that look on 
him love him ; and on that vice in him will my revenge find 
notable cause to work. 

Sir To. What wilt thou do ? 

Mar. I will drop in his way some obscure epistles of 
love ; wherein, by the colour of his beard, the shape of his 
leg, the manner of his gait, the expressure of his eye, fore- 
head, and complexion, he shall find himself most feelingly 
personated : I can write very like my lady, your niece ; on 
a forgotten matter we can hardly make distinction of our hands. 

Sir To. Excellent ! I smell a device. 

Sir And. I have't in my nose too. 

Sir To. He shall think, by the letters that thou wilt drop, 
that they come from my niece, and that she's in love with him. 

Mar. My purpose is, indeed, a horse of that colour. 

Sir To. And your horse now would make him an ass. 

Mar. Ass, I doubt not. 

Sir And. O, 'twill be admirable ! 

Mar. Sport royal, I warrant you : I know my physic will 
work with him. I will plant you two, and let the Fool make 
a third, where he shall find the letter : observe his construc- 
tion of it. For this night, to bed, and dream on the event. 
Farewell. 

Sir To. Good night, Penthesilea.^s \_Exit Maria. 

Sir And. Before me, she's a good wench. 

Sir To. She's a beagle,^^ true-bred, and one that adores 
me : what o' that ? 

28 Penthesilea was Queen of the Amazons, and killed by Achilles in the 
Trojan War ; politely. 

29 A beagle was a small hound, and a keen hunter ; applied to Maria 
from her brevity of person and sharpness of wit. 



SCENE IV. WHAT YOU WILL. 6/ 

Sir And. I was adored once too. 

Sir To. Let's to bed, knight. Thou hadst need send for 
more money. 

Sir And. If I cannot recover your niece, I am a foul way 
out. 

Sir To. Send for money, knight : if thou hast her not i' 
the end, call me cut.^^ 

Sir And. If I do not, never trust me, take it how you 
will. 

Sir To. Come, come ; I'll go burn some sack ; ^i 'tis too 
late to go to bed now : come, knight ; come, knight. [Exeunt. 

Scene IV. — An Apartment in the Duke's Palace, 

Enter the Duke, Viola, Curio, and others. 

Duke. Give me some music : — now, good morrow, friends. — 
Now, good Cesario, but that piece of song, 
That old and antique song we heard last night : 
Methought it did relieve my passion much. 
More than light airs and recollected terms ^ 
Of these most brisk and giddy-paced times. 

30 Cut was a common contraction of curtail. One of the carriers' horses 
in Henry IV. is called Cut. 

31 Sack is an old term for sherry wine, which appears to have been Sir 
Toby's favourite beverage, as it was also Falstaff's, The phrase " ^z^tr;^^ 
sack " occurs twice in The Merry Wives; perhaps a preparation of sack 
and other ingredients finished for the mouth, as flip used to be, by thrusting 
a red-hot iron into it. 

1 This is commonly explained as meaning repeated terms, or the repeti- 
tion of poetical and musical phrases. Some think terms refers to a sort of 
lyrical embroidery made by running culled expressions together, and so 
lacking the plainness and simplicity that goes to the heart. Old and ati- 
tique, two lines before, is not a pleonasm, antique carrying a sense of quaint- 
ness as well as of age. 



6S TWELFTH NIGHT ; OR, ACT 11. 

Come, but one verse. 

Cur. He is not here, so please your lordship, that should 
sing it. 

Duke. Who was it? 

Cur. Feste, the jester, my lord ; a Fool that the Lady 
Olivia's father took much delight in : he is about the house. 

Duke. Go seek him out : — and play the tune the while. — 

\Exit Curio. Music. 
Come hither, boy : if ever thou shalt love, 
In the sweet pangs of it remember me ; 
For such as I am all true lovers are, — 
Unstaid and skittish in all motions else, 
Save in the constant image of the creature 
That is beloved. How dost thou like this tune ? 

Vio. It gives a very echo to the seat 
Where Love is throned. 

Duke. Thou dost speak masterly : 

My life upon't, young though thou art, thine eye 
Hath stay'd upon some favour^ that it loves : 
Hath it not, boy? 

Vio. A little, by your favour. 

Duke. What kind of woman is't ? 

Vio. Of your complexion. 

Duke. She is not worth thee, then. What years, i'faith? 

Vio. About your years, my lord, 

Duke. Too old, by Heaven : let still the woman take 
An elder than herself; so wears she to him, 
So sways she level in her husband's heart : 
For, boy, however we do praise ourselves, 
Our fancies are more giddy and unfirm, 

2 Favour lox feature. Viola in her reply plays upon the word. . 



SCENE IV. WHAT YOU WILL. 69 

More longing, wavering, sooner lost and won, 

Than women's are. 

Vio. I think it well, my lord. - — -,^ 

Duke. Then let thy love be younger than thyself, 

Or thy affection cannot hold the bent ; 

For women are as roses, whose fair flower, 

Being once display'd, doth fall that very hour. 

Vio. And so they are : alas, that they are so, — ^ 

To die, even when they to perfection grow ! — ^^^^ 

Re-enter Curio with the Clown. 

Duke. O, fellow, come, the song we had last night. — 
Mark it, Cesario ; it is old and plain : 
The spinsters and the knitters in the sun. 
And the free ^ maids that weave their thread with bones, 
Do use to chant it : it is silly sooth,^ 
And dallies with the innocence of love. 
Like the old age.^ 

Clo. Are you ready, sir? 

Duke. Ay; pr'ythee, sing. \Music, 

Song. 

Clo. Come away, come away, death, 

And in sad cypress ^ let me be laid ; 
Fly away, fly away, breath ; 

3 Free appears to have been often used in the sense of pure or chaste. 
So, in The Winter s Tale, ii. 3, Hermione is described as " a gracious inno- 
cent soul, more free than he is jealous." It may, however, mean frank, 
unsuspecting ; the proper style of a plain and guileless heart. 

•* Silly sooth is simple truth. 

5 The old age is the ages past , times of simplicity. 

6 C3TDress wood was thought to be the fittest for cofifins. — Come away 
here means co7ne on, or come, simply. Repeatedly so. 



70 TWELFTH NIGHT ; OR, ACT 

I am slain by a fair cruel maid. 
My shroud of white, stuck all with yew, 

O, prepare it / 
My part of death, no one so true 
Did share it? 

Not a flower, not a flower sweet, 

On my black coffin let there be strown ; 
Not a friend, not a friend greet 

My poor corpse, where my bones shall be thrown : 
A thousand thousand sighs to save, 

Lay me, O, where 
Sad true-love never find my grave. 
To weep there ! 



Duke. There's for thy pains. 

Clo. No pains, sir; I take pleasure in singing, sir. 

Duke. I'll pay thy pleasure, then. 

Clo. Truly, sir, and pleasure will be paid one time or 
another. 

Duke. Give me now leave to leave thee.^ 

Clo. Now the melancholy god protect thee j and the 
tailor make thy doublet of changeable taffeta, for thy mind 
is a very opal ! ^ I would have men of such constancy put 

7 Death is a part in the drama of life, which all have to undergo or to 
act ; and the thought here seems to be, that, " of all the actors who have 
shared in this common lot, I am the truest," or, " no one has been so true 
as I." 

8 Probably the Duke's polite way of requesting the Clown to leave. Some, 
however, think the text corrupt ; and so indeed it may be. 

9 The opal is a gem that varies its hues, as it is viewed in different lights, 
like what is sometimes called changeable silk, that is, taffeta. " The melan- 
choly god" is Saturn; hence the word saturnine, which means sad or 



SCENE IV. WHAT YOU WILL. 7 1 

to sea, that their business might be every thing, and their 
intent every where ; for that's it that ahvays makes a good 
voyage of nothing. Farewell. \_Exif. 

Duke. Let all the rest give place. — 

\_Exeu7it Curio and Attendants. 
Once more, Cesario, 
Get thee to yond same sovereign cruelty : 
Tell her, my love, more noble than the world, 
Prizes not quantity of dirty lands ; 
The parts that Fortune hath bestow'd upon her, 
Tell her, I hold as giddily as Fortune ; 
But 'tis that miracle and queen of gems, 
That nature pranks her in, attracts my soul. \ 

Vio. But if she cannot love you, sir ? 

Duke, I cannot be so answer'd. 

Vio. Sooth, but you must. 

Say that some lady — as, perhaps, there is — 
Hath for your love as great a pang of heart 
As you have for Olivia : you cannot love her ; 
You tell her so ; must she not, then, be answer'd ? 

Duke. There is no woman's sides 
Can bide the beating of so strong a passion 
As love doth give my heart ; no woman's heart 
So big, to hold so much ; they lack retention.!^ 
Alas, their love may be call'd appetite, — 
No motion of the liver, ^^ but the palate, — 



10 Retention here evidently has the sense of capacity. A rather singular 
use of the word; but the Poet has it so again in his I22d Sonnet: "That 
poor reteiitlon could not hold so much." — " So big, to hold " is " so big, as 
to hold " ; an ellipsis occurring very often. 

11 The liver was thought to be the special seat of love and courage. See 
page 31, note 7, 



72 TWELFTH NIGHT ; OR, ACT II. 

That suffers surfeit, cloyment, and revolt ; 
But mine is all as hungry as the sea. 
And can digest as much : make no compare 
Between that love a woman can bear me 
And that I owe Olivia. 

Vio. Ay, but I know, — 

Duke. What dost thou know ? 

Vio. Too well what love women to men may owe ; 
In faith, they are as true of heart as we. 
My father had a daughter loved a man, 
As it might be, perhaps, were I a woman, 
I should your lordship. 

Duke. And what's her history ? 

Vio. ( A blank, my lord. She never told her love. 
But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud. 
Feed on her damask cheek : she pined in thought ; ^^ 
And, with a green and yellow melancholy. 
She sat, like Patience on a monument, 
SmiHng at grief.^^ ; Was not this love indeed? 
We men may say more, swear more : but, indeed. 
Our shows are more than will ; for still we prove 
Much in our vows, but little in our love. 

Duke. But died thy sister of her love, my boy ? 

Vio. I'm all the daughters of my father's House, 
And all the brothers too ; — and yet I know not. 

12 The meaning is, " she wasted away through grief." So in Hamlet's 
sohloquy : " The native hue of resolution is sicklied o'er with the pale cast 
of thought " ; that is, the pale complexion of grief. And in Julius Ccesar, 
ii. I : " If he love Caesar, all that he can do is to himself; take thought and 
die for Caesar " ; where take thought and die means " grieve himself to 
death." So, again, in St. Matthew, vi. 25 : " Take no thought for your life, 
what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink ; " &c. 

13 She sat smiling at grief as the image of Patience sits on a monument. 



SCENE V. WHAT YOU WILL. 73 

Sir, shall ! to this lady? 

Duke. Ay, that's the theme. 

To her in haste ; give her this jewel ; say, 
My love can give no place, bide no denay.^^ \_Exeunt. 



Scene V. — Olivia's Garden. 
Enter ^S/r Toby Belch, ^/r Andrew Aguecheek, ^/^^ Fabian. 

Sir To. Come thy ways, Signior Fabian. 

Fab. Nay, I'll come : if I lose a scruple of this sport, let 
me be boil'd to death with melancholy.^ 

Sir To. Wouldst thou not be glad to have the niggardly 
rascally sheep-biter ^ come by some notable shame? 

Fab. I would exult, man : you know he brought me out 
o' favour with my lady about a bear-baiting here. 

14 Denay is an old form of denial ; used here for the rhyme. 

1 Melancholy must be used here to signify a form of madness or lunacy ; 
something such as Milton has in view, in Paradise Lost, x. i, 485 : " De- 
moniac frenzy, moping melancholy, and moon-struck madness." Shake- 
speare repeatedly supposes the brains of crazy people to be in a boiling or 
highly feverish state ; as in ^ Midsummer, v. i : " Lovers and madmen 
have such seething brains." 

2 Sheep-biter, says Dyce, was " a cant term for a thief." But I do not 
well see how it should be applied to Malvolio in that sense. In Measure 
for Measure, v. i, Lucio says to the Duke, who is disguised as a Friar, 
"Show your knave's visage, with a pox to you! show your sheep-biti7ig 
face." Here sheep-biting, as also sheep-biter in the text, seems to have the 
sense of morose, censorious, fault-finding, or given to biting unoffending 
persons with harsh language. In Chapman's May-Day, iii. i, a lecherous, 
intriguing old rogue, named Lorenzo, has a sharp trick played upon him 
by his nephew Lodovico, who speaks of him as follows : " Alas, poor uncle, 
I have monstrously abused him ; and yet marvellous worthy, for he dis- 
parageth the whole blood of us ; and I wish all such old sheep-biters might 
dip their fingers in such sauce to their mutton." 



74 TWELFTH NIGHT ; OR, ACT ll. 

Sir To. To anger him, we'll have the bear again ; and we 
will fool him black and blue : ^ — shall we not, Sir Andrew ? 
Sir And. An we do not, it is pity of our lives. 
Sir To. Here comes the httle villain. 

Enter Maria. 

How now, my metal of India ! ^ 

Mar. Get ye all three into the box-tree : Malvolio's com- 
ing down this walk : he has been yonder i' the sun practising 
behaviour to his own shadow this half hour : observe him, 
for the love of mockery j for I know this letter will make a 
contemplative idiot of him. Close, in the name of jesting ! 
\_The men hide themselves 7\ — Lie thou there; \_Throws 
doivn a letter^ for here comes the trout that must be caught 
with tickling. \_Exit. 

Enter Malvolio. 

Mai. 'Tis but fortune ; all is fortune. Maria once told 
me she did affect me : and I have heard herself come thus 
near, that, should she fancy, it should be one of my com- 
plexion. Besides, she uses me with a more exalted respect 
than any one else that follows her. What should I think 
on't? 

Sir To. Here's an overweening rogue ! 

3 I can hardly imagine what this means, having never met with the 
phrase anywhere else, that I remember. What it is to be flogged black and 
blue I have ample cause to know: but to be /o(7/,?<i black and blue, what is 
it ? Is it to mock one, till he turns black in the face from anger and vexa- 
tion ? The best I can do with it is by quoting from one of Mr. Mantalini's 
speeches in Nicholas Nickleby : " What a demnition long time have you 
kept me ringing at this confounded old cracked tea-kettle of a bell, every 
tinkle of which is enough to throw a strong man into blue convulsions, upon 
my life and soul, oh demmit." 

4 " Metal of India " probably means precious girl, or heart of gold. 



SCENE V. WHAT YOU WILL. 75 

Fab. O, peace ! Contemplation makes a rare turkey-cock 
of him : how he jets under his advanced plumes !^ 

Sir A7td. 'Slight,*^ I could so beat the rogue ! 

Sir To. Peace, I say. 

Mai. To be Count Malvolio : — 

Sir To. Ah, rogue ! 

Sir And. Pistol him, pistol him. 

Sir To. Peace, peace ! 

Mai. — there is example for't; the lady of the strachy''' 
married the yeoman of the wardrobe. 

Sir And. Fie on him, Jezebel ! 

Fab. O, peace I now he's deeply in : look how imagina- 
tion blows him. 8 

Mai. Having been three months married to her, sitting in 
my state, — 

Sir To. O, for a stone- bow,^ to hit him in the eye ! 

5 To jet IS to strut with pride. So in Cymbeline, iii. 3 : " The gates of 
monarchs are arch'd so high, that giants may jet through, and keep their 
impious turbans on, without good morrow to the Sun." — Advanced plumes 
is raised or uplifted feathers. 

6 'Slight/ is a disguised oath, for God's light/ 

' Payne Knight conjectured that strachy was a corruption of the Italian 
stratico, a word derived from the low Latin strategus, or straticus, and often 
used for the governor of a city or province. But Mr. A. E. Brae offers, I think, 
a more probable explanation : " Florio, in his Italian Dictionary, has a word 
very like in sound to this strachy : ' Stratisco, the train or long garment of 
state worn by a princess.' And when it is considered that there is a sort of 
appositeness in making the lady who wears the train condescend to marry 
the man who had charge of it, it offers, I think, a very probable interpreta- 
tion of MalvoUo's meaning." He also quotes from Camden's Remains an 
epitaph showing that " yeoman of the wardrobe " was a well known office 
in the households of high-born ladies : " Her lyes Richard Hobbs, Yeoman 
of the roabes to our late sovereigne Queene Mary." 

8 Puffs him up. So in Bacon's Advancement of Learning : " Knowledge 
bloweth up, but charity buildeth up." 

^ A bow for hurling stones. 



^6 TWELFTH NIGHT ; OR, ACT ll. 

• MaL — calling my ofiEicers about me, in my branch'd 
velvet gown'; having come from a day-bed, where I have left 
Olivia sleeping ; — 

Sir To. Fire and brimstone ! 

Fab. O, peace, peace ! 

MaL — and then to have the humour of state ; and, after 
a demure travel of regard,i^ — telling them I know my 
place, as I would they should do theirs, — to ask for my 
kinsman Toby. — 

Sir To. Bolts and shackles ! 

Fab. O, peace, peace, peace ! now now. 

Mai. — Seven of my people, with an obedient start, make 
out for him : I frown the while ; and perchance wind up my 
watch, or play with some rich jewel. Toby approaches ; 
curtsies ^1 there to me : — 

Sir To. Shall this fellow live ? 

Fab. Though our silence be drawn from us by th' ears, 
yet peace. 

Mai. — I extend my hand to him thus, quenching my 
famiHar smile with an austere regaW of control, ^^ — 

Sir To. And does not Toby take you a blow o' the lips^ 
then? 

Mai. — saying. Cousin Toby, my fortunes having cast me 
on your niece, give me this prerogative of speech ; — 

Sir To. What, what? 

Mai. — you must amend your di^unkenness, — 

Sir To. Out, scab? 

10 This seems to be a Malvolian phrase for a stern and awful gaze or 
stare, with an air of dignified contempt. 

11 Curtsy was used, to denote acts of civility and reverence by either sex. 

12 " An austere regard of control " probably means such a look of stern- 
ness as would awe down or repress any approaches of familiarity. 



SCENE V. WHAT YOU WILL. yj 

Fab, Nay, patience, or we break the sinews of our plot. 

Mai. — Besides, you waste the treasure of your time with 
a foolish knight, — 

Sir And. That's me, I warrant you. 

Mai. — one Sir Aridrew. 

Sir And. I knew 'twas I ; for many do call me fool. 

Mai. What employment have we here ? 

\_Taking up the letter. 

Fab. Now is the woodcock near the gin.^^ 

Sir To. O, peace ! and the spirit of humours intimate 
reading aloud to him ! ^^ 

Mai. By my life, this is my lady's hand : these be her 
very C'j-, her U's, and her Ts ; and thus makes she her great 
P's. It is, in contempt of question, her hand. 

Sir And. Her Cs, her LPs, and her Ts: why that? 

•Mai. [Reads.] To the unknown beloved, this, and my good 
wishes : her very phrases ! — By your leave, wax. — Soft ! and 
the impressure her Lucrece, with which she uses to seal : 'tis 
my lady. To whom should this be ? 

Fab. This wins him, liver and all. 

Mai. [Reads.] Jove knows I love : but who? 

Lips, do not move ; no man must know. 
No man must htow. What follows ? the numbers alter'd ! ^^ 
No man must know. If this should be thee, Malvolio ! 



13 The woodcock was thought to be the stupidest of birds ; and gin was 
but another word for trap or snare. 

14 " May the self-love-sick humour that possesses him prompt him to read 
the letter aloud!" Sir Toby wants to hear the qontents, and also to see 
]Malvolio smack his lips over the " dish of poison." 

15 Referring, no doubt, to the different versification of what follows. The 
use of mimbers for verse is quite common ; as in Milton's " harmonious 
nunibersl' and Pope's " I lisped in numbers, for the numbers came." 



"J^i TWELFTH NIGHT ; OR, ACT II. 

Sir To. Marry, hang thee, brock ! ^^ 

Mai. [Reads.] I may command where I ador£ ; 

But silence, like a Lucrece'' knife, 
With bloodless stroke my heart doth gore: 

M, O, A, I, doth sway my life. 

Fab. A fustian riddle ! 
Sir To. Excellent wench, say I. 

Mai. M, O, A, I, doth sway my life. — Nay, but first, let 
me see, let me see, let me see. 

Fab. What dish o' poison has she dress'd him ! '^'^ 
Sir To. And with what wing the staniel checks at it ! ^^ 
Mai.' / may command where I adore. Why, she may 
command me : I serve' her ; she is my lady. Why, this is 
evident to any formal capacity ; i^ there is no obstruction in 
this : and the end, — what should that alphabetical position 
portend ? if I could make that resemble something in me, — 
Softly!— J/, 0,A,I,— 

Sir To. O, ay, make up that : — he is now at a cold scent.^^ 
Fab. Sowter will cry upon't, for all this, though it be as 
rank as a fox.^^ 

16 Brock is badger, and was used as a term of contempt. 

17 An exclamative speech. We should say " What a dish," &c. See 
Julius CcBsar, page 65, note 14. 

18 The staniel is a species of hawk, which inhabits old buildings and 
rocks. To check, says Latham in his Book of Falconry, is, " when crows, 
rooks, pies, or other birds coming in view of the hawk, she forsaketh her 
natural flight to fly at them." 

19 To any one in his senses, or whose capacity is not out of form. 

20 A cold scent is a trail that has grown so faint as not to be traceable by 
the smell, or hardly so. 

21 Sowter is used here as the name of a hound. — The Poet sometimes 
has though in a causal, not a concessive, sense ; that is, as equivalent to 
because, for, since, or inasinuch as. In such cases, his meaning naturally 
appears to us just the opposite of what it really is. So, here, though it be 



SCENE V. WHAT YOU WILL. 79 

Mai. M, — Malvolio ; M, — why, that begins my name. 

Fab. Did not I say he would work it out ? the cur is ex- 
cellent at faults.22 

Mai. M, — but then there is no consonancy in the sequel ; 
that suffers under probation : ^^ A should follow, but O does. 

Fab. And O shall end, I hope. 

Sir To. Ay, or I'll cudgel him, and make him cry O / 

Mai. And then / comes behind. 

Fab. Ay, an you had any eye behind you, you might see 
more detraction at your heels than fortunes before you. 

Mai. M, O, A, I; this simulation ^4 is not as the former : 
and yet, to crush this a little, it would bow to me, for every 
one of these letters are in my name. Soft ! here follows 
prose. 

— [Reads.] If this fall info thy hand, 7'evolve. In my stars 
I am above thee ; but be not afraid of greatness : some are 
born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness 
thrust upon ^e7n. Thy Fates open their hands ; let thy blood 
and spirit embi^ace them : and, to irmi'-e thyself to what thou 
art like to be, cast thy humble slough, and appear fresh. Be 
opposite with a kinsman, sui'ly with servants ; let thy i 



stands for since or becatise it is. The logic of the passage requires it to be 
so understood ; for, when a hound loses the trail, he snuffs all round till he 
recovers it, and then sets up a peculiar howl, " cries upon't," and starts off 
afresh in the pursuit. " Giving mouth " is the technical phrase for it ; and 
Mr. Joseph Crosby writes me that " it is a cry well known both to the sports- 
men and also to the rest of the pack, which immediately opens in concert." 
'^'^ A fault, in the language of the chase, is a breach in the continuity of 
the trail, so that the hound loses the scent, and has to trace or snuff it out 
anew. The Poet has fault ]ViSt so again in The Taming. 

23 That is, fails or breaks down on being tried or put to the proof 

24 Simulation for resemblance or similarity. Malvolio cannot so easily 
find himself pointed out here as in what has gone before. 



80 TWELFTH NIGHT ; OR, ACT 11. 

twang arguments of State ; put thyself into the trick of singu- 
larity : she thus advises thee that sighs for thee. Remember 
who commended thy yellow stockings, and wish' d to see thee 
ever cross-garter'' d :'^^ I say, re^nember. Go to, thou art 
made, if thou desirest to be so ; if not, let 7?ie see thee a stew- 
ard still, the fellow of sei^vants, and not worthy to touch Foi'- 
tune'' s fingers . Farewell. She that would alter services with 
thee, The Fortunate-Unhappy. 

Daylight and champain discover not more : ^^ this is open. 
I will be proud, I will read politic authors, I will baffle Sir 
Toby, I will wash off gross acquaintance, I will be point- de- 
vise '^'^ the very man. I do not now fool myself, to let imagi- 
nation jade me ; for every reason excites to this, that my lady 
loves me. She did commend my yellow stockings of late, 
she did praise my leg being cross-garter' d ; and in this she 
manifests herself to my love, and, with a kind of injunction, 
drives me to these habits of. her liking. I thank my stars, I 
am happy. I will be strange, stout,^^ in yellow stockings, and 
cross-garter'd, even with the swiftness of putting on. God 
and my stars be praised ! — Here is yet a postscript. 

[Reads.] Thou canst not choose but know who I am. If 
thou entertain' st my love, let it appear in thy smiling: thy 

25 A fashion once prevailed for some time of wearing the garters crossed 
on the leg. Rich and expensive garters worn below the knee were then in 
use. Olivia's detestation of these fashions probably arose from thinking 
them coxcombical. 

26 Champain is open, level country, affording a free prospect. 

27 " I will be punctiliously exacting and precise in all the dues and be- 
comings of my rank." — To baffle, as the word is here used, is to triumph 
over, to treat conteinptuozisly , or to put down. 

28 Strange, here, is reserved, distant, or standing aloof, and on his dignity. 
And stout is in " a concatenation accordingly " ; that is, haughty, overbear- 
ing, or stout-tempered. 



SCENE V. WHAT YOU WILL. 51 

smiles become thee well; therefore in my presence still smile, 
dear my sweet, I pr'ythee. 

God, I thank Thee. — I will smile ; I will do every thing 
that thou wilt have me. \_Exit. 

Fab. I will not give my part of this sport for a pension of 
thousands to be paid from the Sophy.^Q 

Sir To. I could marry this wench for this device, — 

Sir And. So could I too. 

Sir To. — and ask no other dowry with her but such an- 
other jest. 

Sir And. Nor I neither. 

Fab. Here comes my noble gull-catcher. 

Re-enter Maria. 

Sir To. Wilt thou set thy foot o' my neck? 

Sir And. Or o' mine either ? 

Sir To. Shall I play my freedom at tray-trip,30 and become 
thy bond-slave ? 

Sir And. I'faith, or I either? 

Sir To. Why, thou hast put him in such a dream, that, 
when the image of it leaves him, he must run mad. 

Mar. Nay, but say true ; does it work upon him ? 

Sir To. Like aqua-vitae with a midwife. 

Mar. If you will, then, see the fruits of the sport, mark 

29 Sophy was the Persian title of majesty. At the time this play was 
written, Sir Robert Shirley had lately returned as ambassador from the 
Sophy. Sir Robert boasted of the great rewards he had received, and cut a 
big dash in London. 

so Tray-trip was probably a game of dice ; though some hold it to have 
been the game of draughts. So in an old satire called MachiaveV s Dog : 
" But, leaving cards, let's go to dice awhile ; to passage, treitrippe, hazard, 
or mum-chance." — Play my freedom, means play for my freedom ; that is, 
stake it. 



S2 TWELFTH NIGHT ; OR, ACT HI. 

his first approach before my lady : he will come to her in 
yellow stockings, and 'tis a colour she abhors ; and cross- 
garter'd, a fashion she detests : and he will smile upon her, 
which will now be so unsuitable to her disposition, being 
addicted to a melancholy as she is, that it cannot but turn 
him into a notable contempt. If you will see it, follow me. 

Si'r To. To the gates of Tartar,^! thou most excellent devil 
of wit ! 

Sir And. I'll make one too. [Exeunt 



ACT III. 

Scene I. — Olivia's Garden. 
Enter Viola, and the Clown with a tabor, 

Vio. Save thee, friend, and thy music ! dost thou live by 
thy tabor ?i 

Clo. No, sir, I live by the church. 

Vio. Art thou a churchman P^ 

Clo. No such matter, sir : I do live by the church ; for I 
do live at my house, and my house doth stand by the church. 

Vio. So thou mayst say, the king lives by a beggar, if a 
beggar dwell near him ; or, the church stands by thy tabor, 
if thy tabor stand by thy church. 

31 Tartar is the old Tartarus or Hades. Note the sympathy of Tartar 
and devil. 

1 It seems that the " allowed Fool " had a prescriptive right to the tabor 
as his musical instrument. Tarleton, the famous stage jester, is represented 
as armed with one, in a cut prefixed to his Jests, 1611. 

2 Churchman was in common use for clergyman. 



SCENE I. WHAT YOU WILL. 83 

Clo. You have said,^ sir. To see this age ! A sentence 
is but a cheveril glove to a good wit : "^ how quickly the wrong 
side may be turn'd outward ! 

Vio. Nay, that's certain ; they that dally nicely with words 
may quickly make them wanton. 

Clo. I would, therefore, my sister had had no name, sir. 

Vio. Why, man? 

Clo. Why, sir, her name's a word ; and to dally with that 
word might make my sister wanton. But, indeed, words are 
very rascals, since bonds disgraced them.^ 

Vio. Thy reason, man ? 

Clo. Troth, sir, I can yield you none without words ; and 
words are grown so false, I am loth to prove reason with 
them. 

Vio. I warrant thou art a merry fellow, and carest for 
nothing. 

Clo. Not so, sir ; I do care for something ; but in my 
conscience, sir, I do not care for you : if that be to care for 
nothing, sir, I would it would make you invisible. 

Vio. Art not thou the Lady Olivia's Fool? 

Clo. No, indeed, sir \ the Lady Olivia has no folly : she 

8 This form of assent or affirmation, now obsolete, occurs in the Bible ; 
as in our Lord's answer to Pilate, St. Mark, xv. 2 : " Thou sayest it." 

4 A cheveril glove is a kid glove. The term was used much as hidia 
rubbe?' is now. So in one of Ray's proverbs : " He hath a conscience like a 
cheveril s skin." 

5 This probably alludes to an order of the Privy Council, in June, 1600, 
laying very severe restrictions on the Poet's art. The order, besides that it 
allowed only two houses to be used for stage-plays in the city and suburbs, 
interdicted those two from playing at all during Lent., or in any time of great 
sickness, and also limited them to twice a week at all other times. If rigidly 
enforced it would have amounted almost to a total suppression of play- 
houses. As the penalty was imprisonment, it might well be said that words 
were disgraced by bonds. 



84 TWELFTH NIGHT ; OR, ACT III. 

will keep no fool, sir, till she be married ; and fools are as like 
husbands as pilchards are to herrings,^ — the husband's the big- 
ger : I am, indeed, not her fool, but her corrupter of words. 

Vio. I saw thee late at the Count Orsino's. 

Clo. Foolery, sir, does walk about the orb ; like the Sun, 
it shines everywhere. I would be sorry, sir, but''' the fool 
should be as oft with your master as with my mistress : I 
think I saw your wisdom there. 

Vio. Nay, an thou pass^ upon me, I'll no more with thee. 
Hold, there's expenses for thee. [ Gives a piece of money. 

Clo. Now Jove, in his next commodity of hair, send thee 
a beard ! 

Vio. By my troth, I'll tell thee, I am almost sick for 
one ; though I would not have it grow on my chin. Is thy 
lady within ? 

Clo. Would not a pair of these breed,^ sir ? 

Vio. Yes, being kept together, and put to use. 

Clo. I would play Lord Pandarus of Phrygia, sir, to bring 
a Cressida to this Troilus. 

Vio. I understand you, sir : 'tis well begged. 

\_Gives another piece of money. 

Clo. The matter, I hope, is not great, sir, begging but a 
beggar : Cressida was a beggar. ^^ My lady is within, sir. I 

6 Pilchards are said to differ from herrings only in that they can be fried 
in their own fat, whereas herrings have not fat enough for that purpose. 

7 But is here equivalent to if not. See The Merchant, ii. 5, note 19. 

8 Pass for make a pass, thrust, or sally, of wit. 

9 The Fool is quirkishly asking for a mate to the piece of money Viola 
has given him. 

10 This famous jilt-heroine is thus addressed in Henryson's Testament of 
Cresseid : " Great penurye shalt thou suffer, and as a beggar dye." And 
again ; 

Thou shalt go begging from hous to hous, 
With cuppe and clapper like a Lazarous, 



SCENE I. WHAT YOU WILL. 85 

will construe to them whence you come ; who you are, and 
what you would, are out of my welkin, — I might say ele- 
ment, ^^ but the word is over- worn. \_Exif. 

Vio. This fellow's wise enough to play the Fool ; 
And to do that well craves a kind of wit : 
He must observe their mood on whom he jests, 
The quality of persons, and the time ; 
Not, like the haggard, check at every feather 
That comes before his eye.i^ This is a practice 
As full of labour as a wise man's art : 
For folly, that he wisely shows, is fit ; 
But wise men's folly, shown, quite taints their wit.^^ 

Enter Sir Toby Belch and Sir Andrew Aguecheek. 

Sir To. Save you, gentleman ! 

Vio. And you, sir. 

Sir And. Dieu vous garde, monsietir. 

Vio. Efvous aussi ; voire serviteur. 

Sir And. I hope, sir, you are ; and I am yours. 

Sir To. Will you encounter the house ? my niece is desir- 
ous you should enter, if your trade be to her. 

Vio. I am bound to your niece, sir; I mean, she is the 
listi^ of my voyage. 

11 Elemetit was constantly in the mouths of those who affected fine talk, 
ing in the Poet's time. The intellectual exquisites thus run it into cant. 
Perhaps the word was as much overworked as idea and 'intuition are in our 
time. 

12 A haggard is a wild or untrained hawk, which flies, checks, at all birds, 
or birds oi every feather, indiscriminately. See Much Ado, page 67, note 2. 

13 To taint, as here used^ is to impeach, attaint^ or bring into an attainder. 
Wit, also, was used in the sense of wisdom, being in fact from the same 
original, 

14 List was often used for li7nit or boundary ; as, in the well-known lan- 
guage of the tilting-ground, for barrier. 



86 TWELFTH NIGHT ; OR, ACT III, 

Sir To. Taste ^^ your legs, sir; put them to motion. 

Vio. My legs do better understand me, sir, than I under- 
stand what you mean by bidding me taste my legs. 

Sir To. I mean, to go, sir, to enter. 

Vio. I will answer you with gait and entrance : but we 
are prevented.^^ — 

Enter Olivia and Maria. 
Most excellent-accomplish'd lady, the heavens rain odours 
on you ! 

Sir And. \_Aside7\ That youth's a rare courtier : Rain 
odours : well. 

Vio. My matter hath no voice, lady, but to your own most 
pregnant ^^ and vouchsafed ear. 

Sir And. [Aside.] Odours, pregnant, and vouchsafed : 
I'll get 'em all three ready. 

Oli. Let the garden-door be shut, and leave me to my 
hearing. \Exeunt Sir Toby, Sir Andrew, and Maria.] — 
Give me your hand, sir. 

Vio. My duty, madam, and most humble service. 

Oli, What is your name ? 

Vio. Cesario is your servant's name, fair princess. 

Oli. My servant, sir ! 'Twas never merry world 
Since lowly feigning was call'd compliment : 
You're servant to the Count Orsino, youth. 

Vio. And he is yours, and his must needs be yours : 
Your servant's servant is your servant, madam. 

Oli. For him, I think not on him : for his thoughts, 

15 Taste was sometimes used in the sense of t?-y. So in Chapman's 
Odyssey : " He now began to tasfe the bow. 

16 Prevented in the classical sense of anticipated ox forestalled. Often so. 
See The Merchant, page 83, note 18. 

17 Pregnant here means apprehensive, quick, or intelligent. 



SCENE I. WHAT YOU WILL. 8/ 

Would they were blanks, rather than fill'd with me ! 

Vio. Madam, I come to whet your gentle thoughts 
On his behalf, — __ 

OIL < O, by your leave, I pray you : 

I bade you never speak again of him ; 
But, would you undertake another suit, 
I had rather hear you to solicit that 
Than music from the spheres. 

Vio. Dear lady, — 

Oli. Give me leave, I beseech you. I did send, 
After the last enchantment you did here, 
A ring in chase of you : so did I abuse 
Myself, my servant, and, I fear me, you : 
Under your hard construction must I sit. 
To force ^^ that on you, in a shameful cunning, 
Which you knew none of yours : what might you think ? 
Have you not set mine honour at the stake. 
And baited it with all th' unmuzzled thoughts ^^ 
That tyrannous heart can think ? To one of your 
Receiving 20 enough is shown : 
A cyprusj^i not a bosom, hides my heart. 
So, let me hear you speak. ...- - 

Vio. I pity you. 

Oli. That's a degree to love. 

Vio. No, not a grise ; ^^ for 'tis a vulgar proof, 

18 To force with the sense of for forcing. The Poet abounds in such 
instances of the infinitive used like the gerund in Latin. 

19 The figure is of a bear or other animal tied to a stake, to be baited or 
worried by dogs, with free or unmuzzled mouths. 

20 One so quick to understa?jd or apprehend. 

21 Cyprus was the name of a light transparent fabric, like lawn. 

22 Grise is an old word for step, and so means the same as Olivia's de- 
gree, which is used in the Latin sense. 



88 TWELFTH NIGHT ; OR, ACT III. 

That very oft we pity enemies. 

Oli. Why, then methinks 'tis time to smile again. 

world, how apt the poor are to be proud ! 
If one should be a prey, how much the better 

To fall before the lion than the wolf ! [ Clock strikes. 

The clock upbraids me with the waste of time. — 

Be not afraid, good youth, I will not have you : 

And yet, when wit and youth is come to harvest, 

Your wife is like to reap a proper man : 

There lies your way, due west. 

Vio. Then westward-ho 1 23 

Grace and good disposition 'tend your ladyship ! 
You'll nothing, madam, to my lord by me ? 

Oli. Stay: 

1 pr'ythee, tell me what thou think'st of me. 

Vio. That you do think you are not what you are. 

Oli. If I think so, I think the same of you. 

Vio. Then think you right : I am not what I am. 

Oli. I would you were as I would have you be ! 

Vio. Would it be better, madam, than I am, 
I wish it might ; for now I am your fool. 

Oli. \^Aside.'] | O, what a deal of scorn looks beautiful 
In the contempt and anger of his lip ! 
A murderous guilt shows not itself more soon 
Than love that would seem hid : love's night is noon. — 
Cesario, by the roses of the Spring, 
By maidhood, honour, truth, and every thing, 
I love thee so, that, maugre ^^ all thy pride, 
Nor wit nor reason can my passion hide. 

23 An exclamation used by watermen on the Thames. Westward ho. 
Northward ho, and Eastward ho, were also used as titles of plays. 

24 Maugre is in spite of, from the French malgre. 



SCENE II. WHAT YOU WILL. 59 

Do not extort thy reasons from this clause,-^ 
For, that I woo, thou therefore hast no cause ; 
But, rather, reason thus with reason fetter, — ■ 
Love sought is good, but given unsought is better/ 

Via. By innocence I swear, and by my youth, 
I have one heart, one bosom, and one truth, 
And that no woman has ; nor never none^^ 
Shall mistress be of it, save I alone. 
And so adieu, good madam ; . never more 
Will I my master's tears to you deplore. 

OIL Yet come again ; for thou perhaps mayst move 
That heart, which now abhors, to like his love. \_Exeunt, 

Scene II. — A Room in Olivia's House. 

Enter Sir Toby Belch, Sir Andrew Aguecheek, and 
Fabian. 

Sir And. No, faith, I'll not stay a jot longer. 

Sir To. Thy reason, dear venom : give thy reason. 

Fab. You must needs yield your reason. Sir Andrew. 

Sir And. Marry, I saw your niece do more favours to the 
Count's serving-man than ever she bestow'd upon me 3 I 
saw't i' the orchard. 

Sir To. Did she see thee the while, old boy? tell me 
that. 

25 This is rather darkly expressed ; but the meaning appears to be, " Do 
not, from what I have just said, force or gather reasons for rejecting my 
offer." Perhaps Olivia thinks her superiority of rank may excuse her in 
thus making the first open advances. 

26 We should say, " nor ever any'' The doubling of negatives is very 
frequent in Shakespeare, as in all the writers of his time ; but such a trebling 
is rare, at least comparatively so. " 



go TWELFTH NIGHT ; OR, ACT ill. 

Sir And. As plain as I see you now. 

Fab. This was a great argument of love in her toward 
you. 

Sir And. 'Slight, will you make an ass o' me ? 

Fab. I will prove it legitimate, sir, upon the oaths of 
judgment and reason. 

Sir To. And they have been grand-jurymen since before 
Noah was a sailor. 

Fab. She did show favour to the youth in your sight only 
to exasperate you, to awake your dormouse valour, to put 
fire in your heart, and brimstone in your liver. You should 
then have accosted her ; and with some excellent jests, fire- 
new from the mint, you should have bang'd the youth into 
dumbness. This was look'd for at your hand, and this was 
balk'd : the double gilt of this opportunity you let time wash 
off, and you are now sail'd into the north of my lady's opin- 
ion; where you will hang like an icicle on a Dutchman's 
beard, unless you do redeem it by some laudable attempt 
either of valour or policy. 

Sir And. An't be any way, it must be with valour ; for 
policy I hate : I had as lief be a Brownist ^ as a politician. 

Sir To. Why, then build me^ thy fortunes upon the basis 
of valour. Challenge me the Count's youth to fight with him ; 

1 The Brownists were one of the radical sects that arose during the reign 
of Elizabeth ; so called from Robert Brown, their founder. Like others of 
their kind, their leading purpose was to prevent the abuse of certain things, 
such as laws, by uprooting the use of them. Malvolio appears to have been 
intended partly as a satire on the Puritans in general ; they being especially 
strenuous at the time this play was written to have restrictions set upon 
playing. But there had been a deep-seated grudge between the Puritans 
and the Dramatists ever since Nash put out the eyes of Martin Marprelate 
with salt. 

2 In colloquial language, me was often thus used redundantly, though 
with a slight dash of humour. 



SCENE II. WHAT YOU WILL. QI 

hurt him in eleven places : my niece shall take note of it ; and 
assure thyself, there is no love-broker ^ in the world can more 
prevail in man's commendation with woman than report of 
valour. 

Fab. There is no way but this, Sir Andrew. 

Sir And. Will either of you bear me a challenge to him ? 

Sir To. Go, write it in a martial hand; be curst ^ and 
brief; it is no matter how witty, so it be eloquent and full 
of invention : taunt him with the license of ink : if thou 
thou'st^ him some thrice, it shall not be amiss ; and as many 
lies as will lie in thy sheet of paper, although the sheet were 
big enough for the bed of Ware^ in England, set 'em down : 
go, about it. Let there be gall enough in thy ink ; though 
thou write with a goose-pen, no matter : about it. 

Sir And. Where shall I find you ? 

Sir To. We'll call thee at thy cubiculo .-'^ go. 

\_Exit Sir Andrew. 

3 A love-broker is one who mediates or breaks the ice between two bash- 
ful lovers. Pandarus sustains that office in Troilus and Cressida ; hence 
our word pander. 

4 Curst is cross, sjiappish. We should say, " Be short" or " Be tart" 

5 This has been generally thought an allusion to Coke's abusive thouing 
of Sir Walter Raleigh at his trial ; but the play was acted a year and a half 
before that trial took place. And indeed it had been no insult to thou Sir 
Walter, unless there were some pre-existing custom or sentiment to make it 
so. What that custom was, may be seen by the following passage from a 
book published in i66i, by George Fox the Quaker : " For this thoit and thee 
was a sore cut to proud flesh, and them that sought self-honour ; who, though 
they would say it to God and Christ, would not endure to have it said to 
themselves. So that we were often beaten and abused, and sometimes in 
danger of our hves, for using those words to some proud men, who would 
say. What, you ill-bred clown, do you thou me!" 

6 This curious piece of furniture was a few years since still in being at 
one of the inns in that town. It was reported to be twelve feet square, and 
capable of holding twenty-four persons. 

7 Cubiculo ^ from the Latin cubiculum, is a sleeping-room. 



92 TWELFTH NIGHT ; OR, ACT III. 

Fab, This is a dear manikin ^ to you, Sir Toby. 

Sir To. I have been dear to him, lad, — some two thou- 
sand strong, or so.^ 

Fab. We shall have a rare letter from him : but you'll not 
deliver't ? 

Sir To. Never trust me, then ; and by all means stir on 
the youth to an answer. I think oxen and wain-ropes cannot 
hale them together. For Andrew, if he were open'd, an 
you find so much blood in his liver ^^ as will clog the foot of 
a flea, I'll eat the rest of the anatomy. 

Fab. And his opposite, the youth, bears in his visage no 
great presage of cruelty. 

Sir To. Look, where the youngest wren of nine comes.^^ 

Enter Maria. 

Mar. If you desire the spleen,!^ and will laugh yourselves 
into stitches, follow me. Yond gull MalvaHo is turn'd hea- 
then, a very renegado ; for there is no Christian, that means 
to be saved by believing rightly, can ever believe such impos- 
sible passages of grossness.^^ He's in yellow stockings. 

8 Manikin is an old diminutive of man ; here it means pet. 

s Meaning that he has fooled or dandled so much money out of him. 

10 A red liver, or a liver full of blood, was the common badge of courage, 
as a white or bloodless liver was of cowardice. 

11 Alluding to the small stature of Maria. Sir Toby elsewhere calls her 
" the little villain," and Viola ironically speaks of her as " giant." The ex- 
pression seems to have been proverbial ; the wren generally laying nine or 
ton eggs, and the last hatched being the smallest of the brood. 

12 The spleen was held to be the special seat of unbenevolent risibility, 
and so the cause of teasing or pestering mirth ; splenetic laughter. Here it 
seems to mean a fit or turn of excessive merriment, dashed with something 
of a spiteful humour. 

13 A rather curious commentary on the old notion of" Salvation by ortho- 
doxy," or "beUef in believing." The meaning is, that even one who makes 



SCENE III. . WHAT YOU WILL. 93 

Sir To. And cross-garter'd ? 

Mar. Most villanously ; like a pedantic* that keeps a school 
i' the church. I have dogg'd him, like his murderer. He 
does obey every point of the letter that I dropp'd to betray 
him : he does smile his face into more lines than are in the 
new map, with the augmentation of the Indies : ^^ you have 
not seen such a thing as 'tis ; I can hardly forbear hurling 
things at him. I know my lady will strike him : if she do, 
he'll smile, and take't for a great favour. 

Sir To. Come, bring us, bring us where he is. \_Exeunt. 



Scene III. — A Street. 
Enter Sebastian and Antonio. 

Seb. I would not, by my will, have troubled you j 
But, since you make* your pleasure of your pains, 
I will no further chide you. 

Ant. I could not stay behind you : my desire, 
More sharp than filed steel, did spur me forth \ 
And not all love to see you, — though so much 
As might have drawn me to a longer voyage, — 
But jealousy what might befall your travel, 
Being skilless in these parts \ which to a stranger, 

a merit of being easy of belief, as thinking to be saved thereby, could not 
believe a thing so grossly incredible as this. The Poet has impossible else- 
where in the sense of incredible. See Much Ado, page 49, note 21. 

14 The Poet uses pedant iov pedagogue. So Holofemes the schoolmaster 
is called repeatedly in Love's Laboitrs Lost; also the tutors employed for 
Catharine and Bianca in The Taniijig of the Shrew. 

15 Alluding, no doubt, to a map which appeared in the second edition of 
Hakluyt's Voyages, in 1598. This map is multilineal in the extreme, and is 
the first in which the Eastern Islands are included. 



94 TWELFTH NIGHT ; OR, ACT III. 

Unguided and unfriended, often prove 
Rough and unhospitable : my willing love, 
The rather by these arguments of fear, 
Set forth in your pursuit. 

Seb. My kind Antonio, 

I can no other answer make, but thanks. 
And thanks, and ever thanks ; too oft good turns 
Are shuffled off with such uncurrent pay : 
But, were my worth, ^ as is my conscience, firm, 
You should find better dealing. What's to do ? 
Shall we go see the rehques^ of this town? 

Ant. To-morrow, sir j best first go see your lodging, 

Seb. I am not weary, and 'tis long to night : 
I pray you, let us satisfy our eyes 
With the memorials and the things of fame 
That do renown this city. 

• Ant. Would you'd pardon me \ 

I do not without danger walk these streets : 
Once, in a sea-fight, 'gainst the County's galleys 
I did some service ; of such note indeed. 
That, were I ta'en here, it would ^ scarce be answer'd. 

Seb. Belike you slew great number of his people. 

Ant. Th' offence is not of such a bloody nature ; 
Albeit the quality of the time and quarrel 
Might well have given us bloody argument.'* 

1 Worth here stands for wealth ox fortune. Repeatedly so. 

2 Reliques for antiquities, or, as it is said a little after, " the memorials and 
the things of fame " that confer renown upon the city. 

3 Would for could ; the auxiliaries could, should, and would being often 
used indiscriminately. The same with shall and will ; as in a subsequent 
speech : " Haply your eyes shall light," &c. 

4 Argument readily passes over into the sense of debate, and debate as 
readily into that of strife or conflict. 



SCENE III. WHAT YOU WILL. 95 

It might have since been answer'd in repaying 
What we took from them ; which, for traffic's sake, 
Most of our city did : only myself stood out ; 
For which, if I be lapsed ^ in this place, 
■I shall pay dear. 

Sel). Do not, then, walk too open. 

Ant. It doth not fit me. Hold, sir, here's my purse. 
In the south suburbs, at the Elephant, ^ 
Is best to lodge : I will bespeak our diet. 
Whiles you beguile the time and feed your knowledge 
With viewing of the town : there shall you have me. 

Seb. Why I your purse ? 

A7it. Haply your eye shall light upon some toy 
You have desire to purchase ; and your store, 
I think, is not for idle markets, sir. 

Seb. I'll be your purse-bearer, and leave you for 
An hour. 

Ant To th' Elephant. 

Seb. I do remember. \_Exeunt. 

5 Lapsed is, properly, ya;//^;^ ; but here carries the sense of making a slip 
or mis-step, so as to be recognized and caught. 

6 An inn so named ; probably from its having a picture of an elephant 
for its sign ; like the boars-head of Falstaff' s famous tavern in Eastcheap. 
In old times, when but few people could read, lettered signs would not do ; 
and so pictured ones were used instead. 



96 TWELFTH NIGHT ; OR, ACT ill.. 

Scene IV. — Olivia's Garden, 
Enter Olivia and Maria. 

on, \_Aside^ I have sent after him : says he, he'll come,* 
How shall I feast him ? what bestow of him ? '^ 
For youth is bought more oft than begg'd or borrow'd. 
I speak too loud. — 

Where is Malvolio ? — he is sad ^ and civil. 
And suits well for a servant with my fortunes : — 
Where is Malvolio? 

Mar. He's coming, madam ; but in very strange manner. 
He is, sure, possess'd, madam. 

OH. Why, what's the matter ? does he rave ? 

Mar. No, madam, he does nothing but smile : your lady- 
ship were best to have some guard about you, if he come \ 
for, sure, the man is tainted in's wits. 

on. Go call him hither. \_Exit Maria.] — I'm as mad 
as he. 
If sad and merry madness equal be. — 

Re-enter Maria, with Malvolio. 

How now Malvolio ! 

Mai. Sweet lady, ho, ho. \_Si7iiles fantastically. 

OH. Smilest thou ? I sent for thee upon a sad occasion. 

Mai. Sad, lady ! I could be sad : this does make some 
obstruction in the blood, this cross-gartering ; but what of 

7 We should say, "bestow on him." This indifferent use of on and of is 
very frequent. — In the line before, '.' says he, he'll come " of course means 
" if he says he'll come." This way of making the subjunctive is common. 

1 Sad in its old sense of serious or grave. See Much Ado, page 30, 
note 17. 



SCENE IV. WHAT YOU WILL. 97 

that ? if it please the eye of one, it is with me as the very 
true sonnet is, Please 07te, and please all? 

Oli. Why, how dost thou, man ? what is the matter with 
thee? 

Mai. Not black in my mind, though yellow in my legs. 
It did come to his hands, and commands shall be executed : 
I think we do know the sweet Roman hand. 

Oli. Wilt thou go to bed, Malvolio ? 

Mai. To bed ! ay, sweet-heart ; and I'll come to thee. 

Oli. God comfort thee ! Why dost thou smile so, and 
kiss thy hand so oft ? 

Mar. How do you, Malvolio ? 

Mai. At your request ! yes ; nightingales answer daws. 

Mar. Why appear you with this ridiculous boldness before 
my lady ? 

Mai. Be not afraid of greatness : — 'twas well writ. 

Oli. What mean'st thou by that, Malvolio ? 

Mai. Some are horn great^ — 

Oli. Ha ! 

Mai. — some achieve greatness, — 

Oli. What sayest thou? 

Mai. — and some have greatness thrust upon them, 

Oli. Heaven restore thee ! 

Mai. Remember who commended thy yellow stockings, — 

Oli. My yellow stockings ! 

Mai. — and wisli' d to see thee cross-garter* d. 

2 A copy of this " very true sonnet " was discovered a few years ago. It 
is adorned with a rude portrait of Queen Elizabeth, with her feathered fan, 
starched ruff, and ample farthingale, and is said to have been composed by 
her Majesty's right merry and facetious droll, Dick Tarleton ; and has the 
heading, " A prettie new Ballad, intituled, The Crowe sits upon the wall, 
Please one and please all." The last line forms the burden, and is repeated 
in each stanza. 



98 TWELFTH NIGHT ; OR, ACT III. 

on. Cross-garter'd ! 

Mai. Go to, thou art made, if thou desires t to be so; — 

Oli. Am I made? 

Mai. — if not, let me see thee a servant still. 

Oli. Why, this is very midsummer madness.^ 

Enter a Servant. 

Ser. Madam, the young gentleman of the Count Orsino's 
is return'd : I could hardly entreat him back : he attends 
your ladyship's pleasure. 

Oli. I'll come to him. [^:^// Servant.] — Good Maria, 
let this fellow be look'd to. Where's my cousin Toby ? Let 
some of my people have a special care of him : I would not 
have him miscarry for the half of my dowry. 

\_Exeunt Olivia aitd Maria. 

Mai. O, ho ! do you come near me now? no worse man 
than Sir Toby to look to me ? This concurs directly with the 
letter : she sends him on purpose, that I may appear stub- 
born to hirii ; for she incites me to that in the letter. Cast 
thy humble slough, says she : be opposite with a kinsmati, 
surly with servants ; let thy tongue twang arguments of State ; 
put thyself into the trick of singularity : and, consequently, 
sets down the manner how ; as, a sad face, a reverent car- 
riage, a slow tongue, in the habit of some sir of note, and so 
forth. I have limed her ; ^ but it is God's doing, and God 
make me thankful ! And, when she went away now. Let 
this fellow be look'd to : fellow ! not Malvolio, nor after my 



8 " Tis midsummer moon with you " was a proverbial phrase, meaning 
you are mad. Hot weather was of old thought to affect the brain. 

4 That is, caught her, as a bird is caught with lime. Lime was used for 
any trap or snare for catching birds. See Much Ado, page 200, note 10. 



SCENE IV. WHAT YOU WILL. 99 

degree, but fellow.^ Why, every thing adheres together, that 
no dram of a scruple, no scruple of a scruple, no obstacle, 
no incredulous^ or unsafe circumstance, — What can be said ? 
Nothing, that can be, can come between me and the full 
prospect of my hopes. Well, God, not I, is the doer of this, 
and He is to be thanked. 

Re-enter Maria with Sir Toby Belch and Fabian. 

Sir To. Which way is he, in the name of sanctity ? If all 
the devils of Hell be drawn in little, and Legion himself pos- 
sessed him, yet I'll speak to him. 

Fab. Here he is, here he is. — How is't with you, sir? how 
is't with you, man ? 

Mai. Go off; I discard you : let me enjoy my private : 
go off. 

Alar. Lo, how hollow the fiend speaks within him ! did 
not I tell you? — Sir Toby, my lady prays you to have a care 
of him. 

Mai. Ah, ha ! does she so ? 

Sir To. Go to, go to ; peace, peace ; we must deal gently 
with him : let me alone. — How do you, Malvolio? how is't 
with you? What, man ! defy"^ the Devil : consider, he's an 
enemy to mankind. 

Afal. Do you know what you say ? 

Mar. La you, an you speak ill of the Devil, how he takes 
it at heart ! Pray God, he be not bewitch' d ! My lady 
would not lose him for more than I'll say. 

Afal. How now, mistress ! 

Mar, O Lord ! 

5 Malvolio takes felloiv in the sense of compaiiion or equal. 

6 Incredulous for incredible ; an instance of the indiscriminate use of 
active and passive forms. See As You Like It, page 96, note 4. 

7 Defy, again, for renounce or abjure. See page 48, note 13. 



lOO TWELFTH NIGHT ; OR, ACT III. 

Sir To. Pr'ythee, hold thy peace ; this is not the way : do 
you not see you move him? let me alone with him. 

Fab. No way but gentleness ; gently, gently : the fiend is 
rough, and will not be roughly used. 

Sir To. Why, how now, my bawcock ! how dost thou, 
chuck ?^ 

Mai. Sir! 

Sir To. Ay, Biddy,^ come with me. What, man ! 'tis 
not for gravity to play at cherry-pit with Satan : hang him, 
foul collier ! ^^ . 

Mar. Get him to say his prayers ; good Sir Toby, get 
him to pray. 

Mai. My prayers, minx ! 

Mar. No, I warrant you, he will not hear of godliness. 

Mai. Go, hang yourselves all ! you are idle shallow 
things : I am not of your element : you shall know more 
hereafter. , \_Exif. 

Sir To. Is't possible ? 

Fab. If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could con- 
demn it as an improbable fiction. 

Sir To. His very genius hath taken the infection of the 
device, man. 

Mar, Nay, pursue him now, lest the device take air, and 
taint. 

8 Bawcock and chuck were used as terms of playful familiarity, sornetimes 
of endearment. 

9 Biddy is a diminutive oi Bridget, An old term of familiar endearment, 
applied to chickens and other fowl. 

10 Cherry-pit was a game played by pitching cherry-stones into a hole. 
Collier was in Shakespeare's time a term of the highest reproach. The 
coal-venders were in bad repute, not only from the blackness of their ap- 
pearance, but that many of them were also great cheats. The Devil is 
called collier for his blackness. Hence the proverb, " Like will to like, as 
the Devil with the colliery 



SCENE IV. WHAT YOU WILL. 10 1 

Fab. Why, we shall make him mad indeed. 

Mar. The house will be the quieter. 

Sir To. Come, we'll have him in a dark room and 
bound.^i My niece is already in the belief that he's mad : 
we may carry it thus, for our pleasure and his penance, till 
our very pastime, tired out of breath, prompt us to have 
mercy on him ; at which time we will bring the device to. 
the bar, and crown thee for a finder of madmen. — But see^ 
but see. 

Fab. More matter for a May morning.i^ 

Enter Sir Andrew Aguecheek. 

Sir And. Here's the challenge, read it : I warrant there's 
vinegar and pepper in't. 

Fab. Is't so saucy? 

Sir And. Ay, is't, I warrant him : do but read. 

Sir To. Give me. [Reads.] Youth, whatsoever thou art, 
thou art but a scurvy fellow. 

Fab. Good, and valiant. 

Sir To. [Reads.] Wonder not, nor admire not in thy 
mind, why I do call thee so, for I will show thee no reason 
for't. 

Fab. A good note : that keeps you from the blow of the 
law. 

Sir To. [Reads.] Thou comest to the Lady Olivia, and 

11 This seems to have been the common way of treating madness in the 
Poet's time. See As You Like It, page 93, note 49. 

12 It was usual on the First of May to exhibit metrical interludes of the 
comic kind, as well as other sports, such as the Morris-Dance. — In the line 
before, " a finder of madmen " is probably meant in a legal sense ; as when 
a coroner or jury finds, that is, brings in or renders, a verdict. See As You 
Like It, page no, note 8. 



I02 TWELFTH NIGHT ; OR, ACT III. 

in my sight she uses thee kindly : but thou liest in thy throat; 
that is not the matter I challenge thee for. 

Fab. Very brief, and exceeding good sense — less. 

Sir To. [Reads.] I will waylay thee going ho j?ie ; where 
if it be thy chance to kill me, — 

Fab. Good. 

Sir To. [Reads.] — thou kilPst me like a rogue and a 
villain. 

Fab. Still you keep o' the windy side of the law : good. 

Sir To. [Reads.] Fare thee well ; and God have mercy 
upon one of our souls ! He may have mercy upon mine ;^^ 
but my hope is better, and so look to thyself. Thy friend, as 
thou usest him, and thy sworn enemy, Andrew Aguecheek. 

If this letter move him not, his legs cannot : I'll give't him. 

Mar. You may have very fit occasion for't : he is now 
in some commerce with my lady, and will by-and-by depart. 

Sir To. Go, Sir Andrew ; scout me for him at the corner 
of the orchard, like a bum-baily : i^ so soon as ever thou 
see'st him, draw ; and, as thou drawest, swear horrible ; for 
it comes to pass oft, that a terrible oath, with a swaggering 
accent sharply twang'd off, gives manhood more approba- 
tion than ever proof itself would have earn'd him. Away ! 

Sir And. Nay, let me alone for swearing. \_Exit. 

Sir To. Now will not I deliver his letter : for the beha- 
viour of the young gentleman gives him out to be of good 
capacity and breeding; his employment between his lord 

13 The man on whose soul he hopes that God will have mercy is the one 
that he supposes will fall in the combat : but Sir Andrew hopes to escape 
unhurt, and to have no present occasion for that blessing.. — MASON. 

14 Bu7n-bally is a waggish form of bum-bailiff, which, again, is a corrup- 
tion oi hound-bailiff ; a subordinate officer, like our deputy-sheriff, so called 
from the bond which he had to give for the faithful discharge of his trust. 



SCENE IV. WHAT YOU WILL. IO3 

and my niece confirms no less : therefore this letter, being 
so excellently ignorant, will breed no terror in the youth, — 
he will find it comes from a clodpole. But, sir, I will de- 
liver his challenge by word of mouth ; set upon Aguecheek 
a notable report of valour ; and drive the gentleman — as I 
know his youth will aptly receive it — into a most hideous 
opinion of his rage, skill, fury, and impetuosity. This will 
so fright them both, that they will kill one another by the 
look, like cockatrices. ^^ 

Fab. Here he comes with your niece : give them way till 
he take leave, and presently after him. 

Sir To. I will meditate the while upon some horrid mess- 
age for a challenge. \_Exeunt Sir Toby, Fabian, and Maria. 

Re-enter Olivia, with Viola. 

Oli. I've said too much unto a heart of stone. 
And laid mine honour too unchary out : 
There's something in me that reproves my fault j 
But such a headstrong potent fault it is, 
That it but mocks reproof. 

Vio. With the same haviour that your passion bears, 
Goes on my master's grief. 

Oli. Here, wear this jewel for me, — 'tis my picture : 
Refuse it not ; it hath no tongue to vex you : 
And, I beseech you, come again to-morrow. 
What shall you ask of me that I'll deny, ^ 

That honour, saved, may upon asking givep^ 

Vio. Nothing but this, — your true love for my master. 



15 This imaginary serpent was fabled to have the power of darting venom 
from its eyes, or of killing by its look. Shakespeare elsewhere has the 
phrase, " death-darting eye of cockatrice." He also has several allusions to 
the same beast under the name of basilisk. 



I04 TWELFTH NIGHT ; OR, ACT III. 

on. How with mine honour may I give him that 
Which I have given to you ? 

Vio. I will acquit you. 

Oli. Well, come again to-morrow : fare thee well : 
A fiend like thee might bear my soul to Hell. \Exit. 

Re-enter Sir Toby Belch and Fabian. 

Sir To. Gentleman, God save thee ! 

Vio. And you, sir. 

Sir To. That defence thou hast, betake thee to't : of what 
nature the ^vrongs are thou hast done him, I know not ; but 
thy intercepter, full of despite, bloody as the hunter, attends 
thee at the orchard-end : dismount thy tuck, be yare ^^ in thy 
preparation ; for thy assailant is quick, skilful, and deadly. 

Vio. You mistake, sir ; I am sure no man hath any quar- 
rel to me : my remembrance is very free and clear from any 
image of offence done to any man. 

Sir To. You'll find it otherwise, I assure you : therefore, 
if you hold your life at any price, betake you to your guard ; 
for your opposite ^^ hath in him what youth, strength, skill, and 
wrath can furnish man withal. 

Vio. I pray you, sir, what is he ? 

Sir To. He is knight, dubb'd with unhack'd rapier and on 
carpet consideration ; ^^ but he is a devil in private brawl : 

16 Tuck is a rapier or long dagger. — Yare is quick, nimble, or prompt. — ■ 
" Attends thee " here means waits for thee. So in Coriolanus, i. lo : "I am 
attended at the cypress grove." 

17 Opposite for opponent or adversary. So in the second scene of this 
Act : " And his opposite, the youth, bears in his visage no great presage of 
cruelty." Shakespeare never uses opponent. 

18 The meaning of this may be gathered from Randle Holme. Speaking 
of a certain class of knights, he says, " They are termed simply knights of 
the carpet, or knights of the green cloth, to distinguish them from knights 



SCENE IV. WHAT YOU WILL. IO5 

souls and bodies hath he divorced three ; and his incense- 
ment at this moment is so implacable, that satisfaction can be 
none but by pangs of death and sepulchre : hob-nob ^^ is his 
word; give't or take't. 

Vw. I will return again into the house, and desire some 
conduct 2^ of the lady. I am no fighter. I have heard of 
some kind of men that put quarrels purposely on others, to 
taste 2^ their valour : belike this is a man of that quirk. 

Si'r To. Sir, no ; his indignation derives itself out of a 
very competent injury : therefore get you on, and give him 
his desire. Back you shall not to the house, unless you un- 
dertake that with me which with as much safety you might 
answer him : therefore on, or strip your sword stark naked \ 
for meddle you must, that's certain, or forswear to wear iron 
about you. 

Vio. This is as uncivil as strange. I beseech you, do me 
this courteous office, as to know of the knight what my 
offence to him is : it is something of my negligence, nothing 
of my purpose. 

Sir To. I will do so. — Signior Fabian, stay you by this 
gentleman till my return. \_Exit. 

Vio. Pray you, sir, do you know of this matter ? 

Fab. I know the knight is incensed against you, even to a 
mortal arbitrement ; but nothing of the circumstance more. 

Vio. I beseech you, what manner of man is he ? 

that are dubbed as soldiers in the field ; though in these days they are cre- 
ated or dubbed with the like ceremony as the others are, by the stroke of a 
naked sword upon the shoulder." 

19 Hob-nob, hab-nab, habbe or nabbe, is have or not have, hit or miss. 

20 Conduct for conductor, escort, or convoy. So in The Tempest, v. i : 
" There is in this business more than Nature was ever conduct of." Also in 
The Merchant, iv. i : "Go give him courteous conduct to this place." 

21 Taste in the sense oitry has occurred before in this Act. 



I06 TWELFTH NIGHT ; OR, ACT III. 

Fab. Nothing of that wonderful promise, to read him by 
his form, as you are hke to find him in the proof of liis valour. 
He is, indeed, sir, the most skilful, bloody, and fatal opposite 
that you could possibly have found in any part of Illyria. 
Will you walk towards him? I will make your peace with 
him, if I can. 

Vio. I shall be much bound to you for't : I am one that 
had rather go with sir priest than sir knight : ^^ I care not 
who knows so much of my mettle. \_Exeunt. 

Scene V. — The Street adjoiniftg Olivia's Garden. 
Enter Sir Toby Belch and Sir Andrew Aguecheek. 

Sir To. Why, man, he's a very devil ; I have not seen such 
a firago.i I had a pass with him, rapier, scabbard, and all, 
and he gives me the stuck-in^ with such a mortal motion, 
that it is inevitable ; and, on the answer, he pays you as 
surely as your feet hit the ground they step on. They say he 
has been fencer to the Sophy. 

Sir And. Pox on't, I'll not meddle with him. 

Sir To. Ay, but he will not now be pacified : Fabian can 
scarce hold him yonder. 

Sir And. Plague on't, an I thought he had been valiant 
and so cunning in fence, I'd have seen him damn'd ere I'd 
have challenged him. Let him let the matter slip, and I'll 
give him my horse, gray Capulet. 

22 Viola's fright does not quench her humour, or her sense of the ludi- 
crous in her position. Her meaning is, that she would rather be one of the 
parties in a marriage than in a duel. 

1 Flrago, for virago. The meaning appears to be, " I have never seen a 
viraginous woman so obstreperous and violent as he is." 

2 A corruption of stoccata, an Italian term in fencing.. 



SCENE V. WHAT YOU WILL. 10/ 

Sir To. I'll make the motion : stand here, make a good 
show on't : this shall end without the perdition of souls. — 
[^AsideJ] Marry, I'll ride your horse as well as I ride you. — 

Enter Fabian and Viola. 

[To Fab.] I have his horse to take up^ the quarrel : I have 
persuaded him the youth's a devil. 

Fab. He is as horribly conceited of him ; '* and pants and 
looks pale, as if a bear were at his heels. 

Sir To. \To Vio.] There's no remedy, sir; he will fight 
with you for's oath-sake : marry, he hath better bethought 
him of his quarrel, and he finds that now scarce to be worth 
talking of : therefore draw, for the supportance of his vow ; 
he protests he will not hurt you. 

Vio. \_Aside.'\ Pray God defend me ! A little thing would 
make me tell them how much I lack of a man. 

Fab. Give ground, if you see him furious. 

Sir To. Come, Sir Andrew, there's no remedy ; the gentle- 
man will, for his honour's sake, have one bout with you ; he 
cannot by the duello avoid it : but he has promised me, as he 
is a gentleman and a soldier, he will not hurt you. Come 
on ; to't. 

Sir And. Pray God, he keep his oath ! \_Draws. 

Vio. I do assure you, 'tis against my will. \_Draws. 

Enter Antonio. 

A7it. Put up your sword. If this young gentleman 
Have done offence, I take the fault on me : 
If you offend him, I for him defy you. 

3 Take up is the old phrase for viake up or settle. See As You Like It, 
page 134, note 7. 

4 He has as horrid a conception of him. 



I08 TWELFTH NIGHT ; OR, ACT III. 

Sir To. You, sir ! why, what are you ? 

Ant. [^Drawing.'] One, sir, that for his love dares yet do more 
Than you have heard him brag to you he will. 

Sir To. Nay, if you be an undertaker,^ I am for you. 

\_Dra'Ws. 

Fab. O good Sir Toby, hold ! here come the officers. 

Sir To. \_To Antonio.] I'll be with you anon. 

Vio. \_Sir Andrew,] Pray, sir, put your sword up, if you 
please. 

Sir And. Marry, will I, sir ; and, for that I promised you, 
I'll be as good as my word : he will bear you easily, and 
reins well. 

Enter Officers. 

1 Off. This is the man ; do thy office. 

2 Off. Antonio, I arrest thee at the suit 
Of Count Orsino. 

Ant. You do mistake me, sir. 

I Off. No, sir, no jot ; I know your favour well, 
Though now you have no sea- cap on your head. — 
Take him away : he knows I know him well. 

Ant. I must obey. — \To Vio.] This comes with seeking 
you : 
But there's no remedy ; I shall answer it. 
What will you do, now my necessity 
Makes me to ask you for my purse ? It grieves me 
Much more for what I cannot do for you 
Than what befalls myself. You stand amazed j 
But be of comfort.6 



5 One who takes up or undertakes the quarrels of others ; an intermeddler 
or intruder. 

6 Be, of comfort is old language for be comforted. 



SCENE V. WHAT YOU WILL. IO9 

2 Off. Come, sir, away. 

Ant. I must entreat of you some of that money. 

Vio. What money, sir? 
For the fair kindness you have show'd me here, 
And, part, being prompted by your present trouble, 
Out of my lean and low ability 
I'll lend you something : my having is not much ; 
I'll make division of my present with you : 
Hold, there is half my coffer. 

Ant. Will you deny me now? 

Is't possible that my deserts to you 
Can lack persuasion? Do not tempt my misery, 
Lest that it make me so unsound a man 
As to upbraid you with those kindnesses 
That I have done for you. 

Vio. I know of none : 

Nor know I you by voice or any feature : 
I hate ingratitude more in a man 
Than lying, vainness, babbling, drunkenness, 
Or any taint of vice whose strong corruption 
Inhabits our frail blood. 

Ant. O Heavens themselves ! 

2 Off. Come, sir, I pray you, go. 

Ant. Let me speak a little. This youth that you see here 
I snatch' d one half out of the jaws of death ; 
Relieved him with all sanctity of love ; 
And to this image, which methought did promise 
Most venerable worth, did I devotion. 

I Off. What's that to us ? The time goes by : away ? 

Ant. But, O, how vile an idol proves this god ! — 
Thou hast, Sebastian, done good feature shame. 
In nature there's no blemish but the mind ; 



no TWELFTH NIGHT; OR, ACT in. 

None can be call'd deform'd but the unkind : ^ 

Virtue is beauty ; but the beauteous-evil 

Are empty trunks,^ o'erflourish'd by the Devil. 

I Off. The man grows mad : away with him ! — Come, 
come, sir. 

Ant. Lead me on. \_Exeunt Officers with Antonio. 

Vio. Methinks his words do from such passion fly, 
That he believes himself; so do not I.^ 
Prove true, imagination, O, j)rove true. 
That I, dear brother, be now ta'en for you ! 

Sir To. Come hither, knight; — come hither, Fabian: 
we'll whisper o'er a couplet or two of most sage saws. 

Vio. He named Sebastian : I my brother know 
Yet living in my glass ; ^^ even such, and so. 
In favour was my brother ; and he went 
Still in this fashion, colour, ornament. 
For him I imitate : O, if it prove. 
Tempests are kind, and salt waves fresh in love ! [_Exit. 

Sir To. A very dishonest paltry boy, and more a coward 
than a hare : his dishonesty appears in leaving his friend here 
in necessity, and denying him ; and, for his cowardship, ask 
Fabian. 

Fab. A coward, a most devout coward, religious in it. 

Sir And. 'Slid, I'll after him again, and beat him. 

Sir To. Do ; . cuff him soundly, but never draw thy sword. 

Sir And. An I do not, — \_Exit. 

7 Unkmd, here; is timiahu-al, ungrateful, or without natural aflFectiori, 
So the Poet often has kind for nahire. See As You Like It, page 117, note 2. 

8 Trunks, being then part of the furniture of apartments, were orna- 
mented with scroll-work ox fiourished devices. 

9 That is, " I do not yet believe myself, when from this accident I gather 
hope of my brother's hfe." 

10 " His resemblance survives in the reflection of my own figure." 



:ene I. WHAT YOU WILL. Ill 

Fab. Come, let's see the event. 

Sir To. I dare lay any money 'twill be nothing yet. 

\Exeu7it. 



ACT IV. 



Scene I. — The Street adjoining Olivia's Garden. 
Enter Sebastian and the Clown. 

Clo. Will you make me believe that I am not sent for you ? 

Seb. Go to, go to,^ thou art a foolish fellow : 
Let me be clear of thee. 

Clo. Well held out, i'faith ! No, I do not know you ; 
nor I am not sent to you by my lady, to bid you come speak 
with her ; nor your name is not Master Cesario ; nor this is 
not my nose neither. Nothing that is so is so. 

Seb. I pr'ythee, vent thy folly somewhere else : 
Thou knowst not me. 

Clo. Vent my folly ! he has heard that word of some great 
man, and, now applies it to a Fool : vent my folly. I am 
afraid this great lubberly world will prove a cockney .^ — I 

1 The phrase go to, now pretty much obsolete, was very common in the 
Poet's time, especially in colloquial language. Sometimes it is nearly equiv- 
alent to our be off, which appears to be the sense of it in this place ; and 
sometimes it means about the same as coine on. 

2 The meaning seems to be, " I am afraid this great lumpish world will 
be all given over to cockneyism." — Cochtey seems to be understood the 
world over as a term for a Londoner. Minsheu's Ductor m Linguas, 1617, 
explains it thus : " A Cockney may be taken for a child tenderly and wan- 
tonly brought up." So, too, in Phillips's World of Words, 1670 : " Cockney, 
a nickname commonly given to one born and bred in the city of London ; 



112 TWELFTH NIGHT; OR, ACT IV. 

pr'ythee, now, ungird thy strangeness, and tell me what I 
shall vent to my lady : shall I vent to her that thou art 
coming ? 

Seb. I pr'ythee, foolish Greek,^ depart from me : 
There's money for thee : if you tarry longer, 
I shall give worse payment. 

Clo. By my troth, thou hast an open hand. — These wise 
men, that give Fools money, get themselves a good report 
after fourteen years' purchase.* 

Enter Sir Andrew Aguecheek. 

Sir And. Now, sir, have I met you again ? there's for you. 

\_Striking Sebastian. 
Seb. Why, there's for thee, and there, and there, and 
there ! \_Beating Sir Andrew. 

Are all the people mad ? 

Enter Sir Toby Belch and Fabian. 

Sir To. Hold, sir, or I'll throw your dagger o'er the house. 

Clo. This will I tell my lady straight : I would not be in 

some of your coats for twopence. \_Exit. 

Sir To. Come on, sir ; hold. [Holding Sebastian. 

Sir And. Nay, let him alone : I'll go another way to work 

with him ; I'll have an action of battery against him, if there 

be any law in Illyria : though I struck him first, yet it's no 

matter for that. 

also a fondling child, tenderly brought up and cockej-'d" — " Ungird thy 
strangeness " is put off thy estrangement. The Clown, mistaking Sebastian 
for Cesario, thinks his non-recognition to be put on or assumed. 

3 A merry Greek, s-nd a foolish Greek, were ancient proverbial expressions 
applied to boon companions, good fellows, as they were called, who spent 
their time in riotous mirth. 

4 That is,.a-t a very extravagant price ; twelve years' purchase being then 
the current price of estates. 



SCENE I. WHAT YOU WILL. II3 

Seb. Let go thy hand. 

Sir To. Come, sir, I will not let you go. Come, my young 
soldier, put up your iron : you are well fiesh'd ; ^ come on. 

Seb. I will be free from thee. \_Disengages himself r\ What 
wouldst thou now ? 
If thou darest tempt me further, draw thy sword. \_Draws. 

Sir To. What, what? Nay, then I must have an ounce or 
two of this malapert blood from you. [Draws, 

Enter Olivia. 

Oh. Hold, Toby ; on thy life, I charge thee, hold ! 

Sir To. Madam ! 

Oli. Will it be ever thus ? Ungracious wretch, 
Fit for the mountains and the barbarous caves, 
Where manners ne'er were preach'd, out of my sight ! — 
Be not offended, dear Cesario. — 
Rudesby,^ be gone ! — \_Exetmt Sir To., Sir And., and Fab. 

I pr'ythee, gentle friend, 
Let thy fair wisdom, not thy passion, sway 
In this uncivil and unjust extent"'' 
Against thy peace. Go with me to my house j 
And hear thou there how many fruitless pranks 
This ruffian hath botch'd up, that thou thereby 
Mayst smile at this : thou shalt not choose but go : 
Do not deny. Beshrew his soul for me, 

5 The verb to flesh and the noun fleshment were used of one's first ser- 
vice with the sword. So, too, an unfleshed sword is called a maiden sword. 
Sir Toby means to intimate that Sebastian, whom he supposes to be Viola, 
is too young to have ever handled that manly weapon before. 

6 An old term for rude fellow. 

7 Extent, as here used, is a legal term for a civil process whereby the 
person and property of a debtor were seized and held to answer in payment 
of the debt. See As You Like It, page 78, note 3. 



114 TWELFTH NIGHT ; OR, ACT IV. 

He started one poor heart ^ of mine in thee. 

Seb. \_Asider^ What rehsh is in this ? how runs the stream ? 
Or I am mad, or else this is a dream : 
Let fancy still my sense in Lethe steep ; 
If it be thus to dream, still let me sleep ! 

Oli. Nay, come, I pray : would thou'dst be ruled by me ! 

Seb. Madam, I will. 

Oli. O, say so, and so be ! \_Exeunt. 

Scene IL — A Room in Olivia's House. 
Enter Maria and the Clown. 

Mar. Nay, I pr'ythee, put on this gown and this beard ; 
make him believe thou art Sir Top as the curate : do it quickly ; 
I'll call Sir Toby the whilst. \^Exif. 

Clo. Well, I'll put it on, and I will dissemble ^ myself in't ; 
and I would I were the first that ever dissembled in such a 
gown. I am not talP enough to become the function well ; 
nor lean enough to be thought a good student : but to be said 
an honest man and a good housekeeper, goes as fairly as to 
say a careful man and a great scholar. The competitors ^ 
enter. 

Enter Sir Toby Belch and Maria. 

Sir To. God bless thee, master parson ! 

8 An equivoque is here intended between hart and heart, which were 
formerly written alike. 

1 That is, disguise. Shakespeare has here used a Latinism. " Dissimulo, 
to dissemble, to cloak, to hide," says Hutton's Dictionary, 1583. 

2 Tall was sometimes used in the sense of lusty, thus making a good an- 
tithesis to lean. 

3 Confederate ox parttter is one of the old senses oi competitor. — To be a 
£'ood hottsekeeper is to be hospitable. So, in 2 Henry VI., i. i, we have house- 
keeping for hospitality, or keeping open hotcse : " Thy deeds, thy plainness, 
and thy housekeepi?tg, have won the greatest favour of the commons." 



SCENE II. WHAT YOU WILL. II5 

Clo. Bonos dies, Sir Toby : for, as the old hermit of 
Prague, that . never saw pen and ink, very wittily said to a 
niece of King Gorboduc, That that is is ; so I, being master 
parson, am master parson ; for, what is that but that, and 
is but is ? 4 

Sir To. To him, Sir Topas. 

Clo. What, ho, I say, peace in this prison ! 

Sir To. The knave counterfeits well ; a good knave. 

Mai. [ Within.'] Who calls there ? 

Clo. Sir Topas the curate, who comes to visit Malvolio the 
lunatic. 

Mai. [ Within^ Sir Topas, Sir Topas, good Sir Topas, go 
to my lady. 

Clo. Out, hyperbolical fiend ! ^ how vexest thou this man ! 
talkest thou nothing but of ladies ? 

Sir To. Well said, master parson. 

Mai. [ Within.] Sir Topas, never was man thus wronged : 
good Sir Topas, do not think I am mad : they have laid me 
here in hideous darkness. 

Clo. Fie, thou dishonest Satan ! I call thee by the most 
modest terms ; for I am one of those gentle ones that will use 
the Devil himself with courtesy : say'st thou this house is dark ?_ 

MaL [ Within:] As Hell, Sir Topas. 

Clo. Why, it hath bay-windows^ transparent as barrica- 

4 A humorous banter upon the language of the schools. 

° This use of hyperbolical seems to be original with the Clown. Cowley, 
however, in his Essay Of GreaUiess, applies the phrase " hyperbolical fop " 
to one Senecio, who is described by Seneca the Elder as possessed with " a 
ridiculous affectation of grandeur " ; insomuch that he would speak none 
but big words, eat nothing but what was big, nor wear any shoe that was 
not big enough for both his feet. 

6 Bay-windows were large projecting windows, probably so called be- 
cause they occupied a whole bay or space between two cross-beams in a 
building. 



Il6 TWELFTH night; OR, ACT IV. 

does, and the clere-storeys ''' toward the south-north are as 
lustrous as ebony ; and yet complainest thou of obstruction ? 

Mai. [ Within/^ I am not mad, Sir Topas : I say to you, 
this house is dark. 

Clo. Madman, thou errest : I say, tliere is no darkness 
but ignorance ; in which thou art more puzzled than the 
Egyptians in their fog. 

Mai. \_Withinr\ I say, this house is as dark as ignorance, 
though ignorance were as dark as Hell ; and I say, there was 
never man thus abused. I am no more mad than you are : 
make the trial of it in any constant question.^ 

Clo. What is the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wild- 
fowl? 

Mai. [ Within.'] That the soul of our grandam might haply 
inhabit a bird. 

Clo. What thinkest thou of his opinion ? 

Mai. \_Withi7i.'] I think nobly of the soul, and no way 
approve his opinion. 

Clo. Fare thee well. Remain thou still in darkness : thou 
shalt hold the opinion of Pythagoras ere I will allow of thy 
wits ; and fear to kill a woodcock,^ lest thou dispossess the 
soul of thy grandam. Fare thee well. 

Mai. \_Wifhin.'] Sir Topas, Sir Topas, — 



7 Clere-storeys, in Gothic architecture, are the row of windows running 
along the upper part of a lofty hall or of a church, over the arches of the 
nave. 

8 Tliat is, by repeating the same question. A crazy man, on being asked 
to repeat a thing he has just said, is very apt to go on and say something 
else. So in Hamlet, iii. 4 : " 'Tis not madness that I have utter'd : bring 
me to the test, and I the matter will re-word ; which madness would gam- 
bol from." 

9 The Clown mentions a woodcock, because it was proverbial as a foolish 
bird, and therefore a proper ancestor for a man out of his wits. 



SCENE II. WHAT YOU WILL. 11/ 

Sir To. My most exquisite Sir Topas ! 

Clo. Nay, I am for all waters. ^^ 

Mar. Thou mightst have done this without thy beard and 
gown : he sees thee not. 

Sir To. To him in thine own voice, and bring me word 
how thou findest him : I would we were well rid of this 
knavery. If he may be conveniently deliver'd, I would he 
were ; for. I am now so far in offence with my niece, that I 
cannot pursue with any safety this sport to the upshot. Come 
by-and-by to my chamber. \_Exeunf Sir Toby and Maria. 

Clo. [Singing.] Hey, Robin, jolly Robin, 

Tell me how thy lady does.'^^ 

Mai. \_Wifhin.'] Fool, — 

Clo. [Singing.] My lady is tinkind, perdy. 

Mai. IWilhin.'] Fool,— 

Clo. [Singing.] Alas, why is she so ? 

Mai. \_Wifhiji.'\ Fool, I say, — 

Clo. [Singing.] She loves another — Who calls, ha? 

Mai. [ Within^ Good Fool, as ever thou wilt deserve well 
at my hand, help me to a candle, and pen, ink, and paper : 
as I am a gentleman, I will live to be thankful to thee for't. 

Clo. Master Malvolio ? 

Mai. [ Within r\ Ay, good Fool. 

Clo. Alas, sir, how fell you beside your five wits ? 

Mai. \_Within7\ Fool, there was never man so noto- 
riously ^^ abused : I am as well in my wits. Fool, as thou art. 

10 The meaning appears to be, I can turn my hand to any thing, or as- 
sume any character. Florlo in his translation of Montaigne, speaking of 
Aristotle, says, "He hath an oar in every water, and meddleth with all 
things." And in his Second Frutes : " I am a knight for all saddles!' 

11 This ballad may be found in Percy's Reliques. Dr. Nott has also 
printed it among the poems of Sir Thomas Wyatt the elder. 

12 Notoriously in the sense oi prodigiously or outrageously. W^ bave no- 
torious in the same sense near the end of the play. 



1 1 8 TWELFTH NIGHT ; OR, ACT iv, 

Clo. But as well ? then you are mad indeed, if you be no 
better in your wits than a fool. 

Mai. [ Within.~\ They have here propertied me ; ^^ keep 
me in darkness, send ministers to me, asses, and do all they 
can to face me out of my wits. 

Clo. Advise you what you say ; the minister is here.i^ — 
Malvolio, Malvolio, thy wits the Heavens restore ! endeavour 
thyself to sleep, and leave thy vain bibble-babble. 

Mai. [ Withm.'] Sir Topas, — 

Clo. Maintain no words with him, good fellow. — Who, I, 
sir? not I, sir. God b' wi' you,i^ good Sir Topas ! — Marry, 
amen. — I will, sir, I will. 

Mai. \_Within.'] Fool, Fool, Fool, I say,— 

Clo. Alas, sir, be patient. What say you, sir ? I am shent ^^ 
for speaking to you. 

Mai. \_Wifhin.'] Good Fool, help me to some light and 
some paper : I tell thee, I am as well in my wits as any man 
in Illyria. 

Clo. Well-a-day, that you were, sir ! 

Mai. \_Wtlhm.'] By this hand, I am. Good Fool, some 
ink, paper, and light ; and convey what I will set down to my 
lady : it shall advantage thee more than ever the bearing of 
letter did. 

13 " Taken possession of me as of a man unable to look to himself." 

14 The Clown, in the dark, acts two persons, and counterfeits, by varia- 
tion of voice, a dialogue between himself and Sir Topas ; the preceding part 
of this speech being spoken as Clown, the following as Priest. — "Advise 
you " is bethink you, consider, or be careficl. — In the next line, " endeavour 
thyself to sleep" is induce, per stiade, or compose thyself; endeavour being 
used transitively. 

15 Here we have the old phrase " God be with you " in the process of 
contraction into the modern phrase good bye. See As You Like It, page 
131, note 6. 

IS Shent is an old word for scolded^ blamed, or reprima7ided. 



SCENE II. WHAT YOU WILL. I IQ 

Clo. I will help you to't. But tell me true, are you not 
mad indeed ? or do you but counterfeit ? 

Mai. [ Within.'] Believe me, I am not ; I tell thee true. 
Clo. Nay, I'll ne'er believe a madman till I see his brains. 
I will fetch you light, and paper, and ink. 

MaL [ WithinT] Fool, I'll requite it in the highest degree : 
I pr'ythee, be gone. 
Clo. [Singing.] 

/ am gone, sir; and anon, sir, 
I^ll be with you again, 

In a trice, like to the old Vice^ 
You need to sustain; 
Who, with dagger of lath, in his rage and his wrath, 

Cries, ah, ha ! to the Devil: 
Like a mad lad, pare thy nails, dad; 

Adietc, goodman ^'^ Devil. \_Exif. 

17 Both the Vice and the Devil were stereotyped personages in the old 
Moral-plays which were in use for many ages before the Poet's time, and 
were then just going out of use. The Vice, sometimes called Iniquity, was 
grotesquely dressed in a cap with ass's ears, and a long coat, and armed 
with a dagger of lath. He commonly acted the part of a broad, rampant 
jester and buffoon, full of mad pranks and mischief-making, liberally dashed 
with a sort of tumultuous, swaggering fun. Especially, he was given to 
cracking ribald and saucy jokes with and upon the Devil, and treating him 
with a style of coarse familiarity and mockery ; and a part of his ordinary 
functions was to bestride the Devil, and beat him with his dagger till he 
roared, and the audience roared with him ; the scene ending with his being 
carried off to Hell on the Devil's back. The Vice was the germ of the pro- 
fessional Fool or Clown, which Shakespeare delivers in so many forms, and 
always so full of matter, 

■ 18 Goodman in old language is nearly equivalent to master, or to our flat- 
tened form of it, inister. It was common for women to speak of their hus- 
bands as my goodma7i. And in St, Matthew, xx. ii : " They murmured 
against the goodman of the house." Also in St. Luke, xii, 39. The verses 
in the text are most likely from an old popular song, of which nothing fur- 
ther is known. 



120 TWELFTH NIGHT ; OR, ACT iv. 

Scene III. — Olivia's Garden. 

Enter Sebastian. 

Seb. This is the air ; that is the glorious Sun ; 
This pearl she gave me, I do feel't and see't : 
And though 'tis wonder that enwraps me thus, 
Yet 'tis not madness. Where's Antonio, then? 
-I could not find him at the Elephant : 
Yet there he was ; and there I found this credit,* 
That he did range the town to seek me out. 
His counsel now might do me golden service ; 
For, though my soul disputes well with my sense, 
That this may be some error, but no madness. 
Yet doth this accident and flood of fortune 
So far exceed all instance, all discourse, 
That I am ready to distrust mine eyes, 
And wrangle with my reason, that persuades me 
To any other trust but that I'm mad, — 
Or else the lady's mad : yet, if 'twere so, 
She could not sway her house, command her followers, 
Take and give back affairs, and their dispatch,^ 
With such a smooth, discreet, and stable bearing, 
As I perceive she does. There's something in't 

1 Credit is oddly used here, but in the sense, apparently, of information 
or intelligence. So in a letter from Queen Elizabeth to Sir Nicholas 
Throckmorton : " This bearer came from you with great speed. We have 
heard his credit, and find your carefulness and diligence very great." 

2 The language is very odd and obscure, and gives but a slight hint of 
the speaker's probable meaning. A good housekeeper, at the head of a 
large domestic establishment, naturally has her time a good deal occupied 
in taking account or receiving word of things that need to be done, and in 
issuing orders and directions for the doing of them, or for " their dispatch." 



SCENE III. WHAT YOU WILL. . 121 

That is deceivable.3 But here the lady comes. 
Enter Olivia and a Priest. 

Oli. Blame not this haste of mine. If you mean well, 
Now go with me and with this holy man 
Into the chantry'* by : there, before him. 
And underneath that consecrated roof. 
Plight me the full assurance of your faith ; 
That my most jealous and too doubtful^ soul 
May live at peace : he shall conceal it. 
Whiles you are wilHng it shall come to note,^ 
What time we will our celebration keep 
According to my birth. What do you say? 

Seb. I'll follow this good man, and go with you ; 
And, having sworn truth, ever will be true. 

Oli. ■ Then lead the way, good father ; — and heavens so 
shine. 
That they may fairly note this act of mine ! "^ \Exeunt. 

3 Deceivable for deceiving or deceptive ; the passive form, again, with the 
active sense. See page 99, note 6. 

4 A chantry was a little chapel, or particular altar in some cathedral 
or parochial church, endowed for the purpose of having Masses sung 
therein for the souls of the founders ; a place for chanting. 

5 Doubtful in the sense oi fearful. The Poet often uses doubt iox fear. 

6 Whiles was often used thus in the sense oi until. — Note, from the Latin 
notitia, is several times used by the Poet in the sense of knowledge. — The 
ceremony to which Olivia here so sweetly urges Sebastian is the ancient 
solemn troth-plight, as it was called, which, as it had the binding force of an 
actual marriage, might well give peace to an anxious maiden till the day of 
full nuptial possession should arrive. 

■^ A bright, glad sunshine falling upon a bride or new-made wife was 
formerly thought auspicious; it inspired a feeling that the Powers above 
were indeed smiling their benediction upon the act; and so was fitting 
cause for prayer beforehand, and of thanksgiving afterwards. Of course 
this was a fond old superstition : but I believe marriage is not even yet 
so far enlightened and " de-religionized " but that something of the old 
feeling still survives. 



122 • TWELFTH NIGHT ; OR, 



ACT V. 

Scene I. — The Street before Olivia's House, 

Enter the Clown and Fabian. 

Fab. Now, as thou lovest me, let me see his letter. 
Clo. Good Master Fabian, grant me another request. 
Fab. Any thing. 

Clo. Do not desire to see this letter. 
Fab. This is, to give a dog, and, in recompense, desire 
my dog again. 

Enter the Duke, Viola, Curio, and Attendants. 

Duke. Belong you to the Lady Olivia, friends ? 

Clo. ' Ay, sir ; we are some of her trappings. 

Duke. I know thee well : how dost thou, my good fellow? 

Clo. Truly, sir, the better for my foes, and the worse for 
my friends. 

Duke. Just the contrary ; the better for thy friends. 

Clo. No, sir, the worse. 

Duke. How can that be ? 

Clo. Marry, sir, they praise me, and make an ass of me. 
Now my foes tell me plainly I am an ass : so that by my foes, 
sir, I profit in the knowledge of myself; and by my friends 
I am abused : so that, conclusions to be as kisses, ^ if your 

1 Warburton thought this should be, " conclusion to be asked is " ; upon 
which Coleridge remarks thus : " Surely Warburton could never have 
wooed by kisses and won, or he would not have flounder-flatted so just and 
humorous, nor less pleasing than humorous, an image into so profound a 



SCENE I. WHAT YOU WILL. 123 

four negatives make your two affirmatives, why, then the 
worse for my friends, and the better for my foes. 

Duke. Why, tliis is excellent. 

Clo. By my troth, sir, no ; though it please you to be one 
of my friends. 

Duke. Thou shalt not be the worse for me : there's gold. 

\_Gives mo7iey. 

Clo. But that it would be double-dealing, sir, I would 
you could make it another. 

Duke. O, you give me ill counsel. 

Clo. Put your grace in your pocket,^ sir, for this once, 
and let your flesh and blood obey it. 

Duke. Well, I will be so much a sinner to be a double- 
dealer : there's another. \_Gives money. 

Clo. Pri7no, secundo, tertio, is a good play ; and the old 
saying is, the third pays for all : the triplex, sir, is a good 
tripping measure ; as the bells of Saint Bennet, sir, may put 
you in mind, — one, two, three. 

Duke. You can fool no more money out of me at this 
throw : if you will let your lady know I am here to speak 
with her, and bring her along with you, it may awake my 
bounty further. 

Clo. Marry, sir, lullaby to your bounty till I come again. 

nihility. In the name of love and wonder, do not four kisses make a double 
affirmative ? The humour lies in the whispered ' No ! ' and the inviting 
' Don't ! ' with which the maiden's kisses are accompanied, and thence com- 
pared to negatives, which by repetition constitute an affirmative." The 
Cambridge Editors, however, note upon the passage thus : " The meaning 
seems to be nothing more recondite than this : as in the syllogism it takes 
two premisses to make one conclusion, so it takes two people to make one 
kiss." 

2 The Clown puns so swiftly here that it is not easy to keep up with him. 
The quibble lies between the two senses oi grace as a title and as a gracious 
impulse or thought. 



1 24 TWELFTH NIGHT ; OR, ACT v. 

I go, sir ; but I would not have you to think that my desire 
of having is the sin of covetousness : but, as you say, sir, let 
your bounty take a nap, I will awake it anon. \_Exif. 

Vio, Here comes the man, sir, that did rescue me. 

Enter Officers, with Antonio. 

Duke. That face of his I do remember well ; 
Yet, when I saw it last, it was besmear'd 
As black as Vulcan in the smoke of war : 
A bawbling vessel was he captain of, 
For shallow draught and bulk unprizable ; ^ 
With which such scathful grapple did he make 
With the most noble bottom of our fleet, 
That very envy and the tongue of loss ^ 
Cried fame and honour on him. — What's the matter? 

I Off. Orsino, this is that Antonio 
That took the Phoenix and her fraught from Candy ; 
And this is he that did the Tiger board, 
When your young nephew Titus lost his leg : 
Here in the streets, desperate of shame and state,^ 
In private brabble did we apprehend him. 

Vio. He did me kindness, sir ; drew on my side ; 
But, in conclusion, put strange speech upon me, — 
I know not what 'twas, but distraction. 

Duke, Notable pirate ! thou salt-water thief ! 
What foolish boldness brought thee to their mercies, 



3 Unprizable is evidently used here in the sense of worthless, or of no 
price. The Poet elsewhere has it in the opposite sense of ifiestimable. 

4 " The tongue of loss " here means the tongue of the loser ; but is much 
more elegant. — Scathful is harmful, damaging, or destructive. 

5 Inattentive to his character or condition, like a desperate man. 



SCENE I. WHAT YOU WILL. 12$ 

Whom thou, in terms so bloody and so dear,^ 
Hast made thine enemies ? 

Ant Orsino, noble sir, 

Be pleased that I shake off these names you give me: 
Antonio never yet was thief or pirate. 
Though, I confess, on base and ground enough, 
Orsino 's enemy. A witchcraft drew me hither : 
That most ingrateful boy there by your side, 
From the rude sea's enraged and foamy mouth 
Did I redeem ; a wreck past hope he was : 
His life I gave him, and did thereto add 
My love, without retention or restraint, 
All his in dedication ; for his sake 
Did I expose myself, pure for his love, 
Unto the danger of this adverse tpwn ; 
Drew to defend him when he was beset : 
Where being apprehended, his false cunning — 
Not meaning to partake with me in danger — 
Taught him to face me out of his acquaintance, 
And grew a twenty-years-removed thing 
While one would wink ; denied me mine own purse, 
Which I had recommended to his use 
Not half an hour before. 

Vio. How can this be ? 

Duke. When came he to this town? 

Ant. To-day, my lord : and for three months before — 

6 Dear is used in the same sense here as in Hamlet : " Would I had met 
my dearest foe in Heaven ! " Tooke has shown that this is much nearer the 
original sense of the word than the meaning commonly put upon it ; dear 
being from the Anglo-Saxon verb to dere, which signifies to hurt. An ob- 
ject of love, any thing that we hold dear, may obviously cause us pain, dis- 
tress, or solicitude : hence the word came to be used in the opposite senses 
of hateful and beloved. 



126 TWELFTH NIGHT ; OR, ACT V. 

No interim, not a minute's vacancy — 
Both day and night did we keep company. 

Duke. Here comes the Countess :[now Heaven walks on 
earth/v— 
But for thee, fellow, fellow, thy words are madness : 
Three months this youth hath tended upon me ; 
But more of that anon. — Take him aside. 

Enter Olivia and Attendants. 

OH. What would my lord, but that he may not" havje, 
Wherein Olivia may seem serviceable ? — 
Cesario, you do not keep promise with me. 

Vio. Madam ! 

Duke. Gracious Olivia, — 

Oli. What do you say, Cesario ? — Good my lord, — 

Vio. My lord would speak ; my duty hushes me. 

Oli. If it be aught to the old tune, my lord, 
It is as fat and fulsome ''' to mine ear 
As howling after music. 

Duke. Still so cruel? 

Oli. Still so constant, lord. 

Duke. What, to perverseness ? you uncivil lady. 
To whose ingrate and unauspicious altars 
My soul the faithfull'st offerings hath breath'd out 
That e'er devotion tender'd ! What shall I do ? 

Oli. Even what it please my lord, that shall become him. 

Duke. Why should I not, had I the heart to do it. 
Like to th' Egyptian thief at point of death, 



7 Both /a/ axidifulsotne seem here to have nearly the sense of dull, gross, 
or sickening. The Poet uses fulsotne of a wine that soon palls upon the 
taste from its excessive sweetness. 



SCENE I. WHAT YOU WILL. 12/ 

Kill what I love?^ a savage jealousy 

That sometime savours nobly. But hear me this : 

Since you to non-regardance cast my faith, 

And that I partly know the instrument 

That screws me from my true place in your favour, 

Live you the marble-breasted tyrant still ; 

But this your minion, whom I know you love. 

And whom, by Heaven I swear, I tender dearly, 

Him will I tear out of that cruel eye. 

Where he sits crowned in his master's spite. — 

Come, boy, with me ; my thoughts are ripe in mischief: 

I'll sacrifice the lamb that I do love. 

To spite a raven's heart within a 4ove» [ Going, 

Vio. And I, most jocund, apt, and willingly. 
To do you rest, a thousand deaths would die. \_Following. 

on. Where goes Cesario? 

Vio. After him I love 

More than I love these eyes, more than my life. 
More, by all mores, than ere I shall love wife. — 
If I do feign, you witnesses above. 
Punish my life for tainting of my love ! 

OH. Ah me, detested ! how am I beguiled ! 

Vio. Who does beguile you? who does do you wrong? 

8 An allusion to the story of Thyamis, as told by Heliodorus in his Ethi- 
opics, of which an English version by Thomas Underdowne was published 
a second time in 1587. Thyamis was a native of Memphis, and chief of a 
band of robbers. Chariclea, a Greek, having fallen into his hands, he grew 
passionately in love with her, and would have married her ; but, being sur- 
prised by a stronger band of robbers, and knowing he must die, he went to 
the cave where he had secreted her with his other treasures, and, seizing her 
by the hair with his left hand, with his right plunged a sword in her breast; 
it being the custom with those barbarians, when they despaired of their own 
life, first to kill those whom they held most dear, so as to have them as com- 
panions in the other world, 



128 TWELFTH NIGHT ; OR, ACT V. 

Oli. Hast thou forgot thyself? is it so long? — 
Call forth the holy father. {Exit an Attendant. 

Duke. \To Viola.] Come, away ! 

OH. Whither, my lord? — Cesario, husband, stay. 

Duke. Husband ! 

Oli. Ay, husband : can he that deny? 

Duke. Her husband, sirrah ! 

Vio. No, my lord, not I. 

Oli. Alas, it is the baseness of thy fear 
That makes thee strangle thy propriety : ^ 
Fear not, Cesario ; take thy fortunes up ; 
Be that thou know'st thou art, and then thou art 
As great as that thou fear'st. — 

Re-enter Attendant, with the Priest. 

O, welcome, father ! 
Father, I charge thee, by thy reverence. 
Here to unfold — though lately we intended 
To keep in darkness what occasion now 
Reveals before 'tis ripe — what thou dost know 
Hath newly pass'd between this youth and me. 

Priest. A contract and eternal bond of love, 
Confirm'd by mutual joinder of your hands. 
Attested by the holy close of lips, 
Strengthen'd by interchange ment of your rings ; ^^ 
And all the ceremony of this compact 
Seal'd in my function, by my testimony : 
Since when, my watch hath told me, toward my grave 
I've travel!' d but two hours. 

Duke. O thou dissembling cub ! what wilt thou be 

9 " Suppress or disown \hy proper self; deny what you really are." 
10 In ancient espousals the man received as well as gave a ring. 



SCENE I. WHAT YOU WILL. 1 29 

When time hath sow'd a grizzle on thy caseP^i 
Or will not else thy craft so quickly grow, 
That thine own trip shall be thine overthrow? 
Farewell, and take her ; but direct thy feet 
Where thou and I henceforth may never meet. 

Vto. My lord, I do protest, — 

OH. O, do not swear ! 

Hold little faith, though thou hast too much fear. 

Enter Sir Andrew Aguecheek with his head broken. 

Sir And. For the love of God, a surgeon ! send one pres- 
ently to Sir Toby. 

OH. What's the matter? 

Sir And. 'Has broke my head across, and has given Sir 
Toby a bloody coxcomb too : for the love of God, your help ! 
I had rather than forty pound I were at home. 

OH. Who has done this, Sir Andrew? 

Sir And. The Count's gentlemen, one Cesario : we took 
him for a coward, but he's the very devil incardinate. 

Duke. My gentleman Cesario ? 

Sir And. 'Od's lifelings,!^ here he is! — You broke my 
head for nothing ; and that that I did, I was set on to do't by 
Sir Toby. 

Vio. Why do you speak to me ? I never hurt you : 
You drew you sword upon me without cause \ 
But I bespake you fair, and hurt you not. 

11 The skin of a fox or rabbit was often called its case. So in Gary's 
Present State of E7igland, 1626 : " Queen Elizabeth asked a knight, named 
Young, how he liked a company of brave ladies. He answered, "As I like 
my silver-haired conies at home : the cases are far better than the bodies." 

12 Lifelings is a diminutive of life, 2lS p ittiki7ts is of pity. 'Od's is one of 
the disguised oaths so common in old colloquial language ; the original form 
being God's, We have Imogen exclaiming 'Od's pittikinsirx Cymbeline,h!.2. 



130 TWELFTH NIGHT ; OR, ACT V. 

Sir And. If a bloody coxcomb be a hurt, you have hurt 
me : I think you set nothing by a bloody coxcomb. — Here 
comes Sir Toby halting, — you shall hear more : but if he had 
not been in drink, he would have tickled you othergates ^^ 
than he did. 

Enter Sir Toby Belch, led by the Clown. 

Duke. How now, gentleman ! how is't with you? 

Sir To. That's all one : 'has hurt me, and there's the end 
on't. — Sot, didst see Dick surgeon, sot ? 

Clo. O, he's drunk, Sir Toby, an hour agone ; his eyes 
were set at eight i' the morning. 

Sir To. Then he's a rogue and a passy-measures paynim : ^^ 
I hate a drunken rogue. 

Oli. Away with him ! Who hath made this havoc with 
them? 

Sir And. I'll help you. Sir Toby, because we'll be dress'd 
together. 

Sir To. Will you help ? — an ass-head and a coxcomb and 
a knave ! a thin-faced knave, a gull ! 

Oli. Get him to bed, and let his hurt be look'd to. 

\_Exeunt Clown, Fabl^, Sir Toby, and Sir Andrew. 

Enter Sebastmn. 

Seb. I'm sorry, madam, I have hurt your kinsman ; 
But, had it been the brother of my blood, 
I must have done no less with wit and safety. 

13 Othergates is an old word meaning the same as our otherwise. 

14 Paynim, mesining pagan or heathen, was of old a common term of re- 
proach. Sir Toby is too deeply fuddled to have his tongue in firm keeping, 
and so uses passy-measures for past-measure, probably. 



SCENE I. WHAT YOU WILL. I3I 

You throw a strange regard ^^ on me ; by that 
I do perceive it hath offended you : 
Pardon me, sweet one, even for the vows 
We made each other but so late ago. 

Dicke. One face, one voice, one habit, and two persons, — 
A natural perspective, ^^ that is and is not ! 

Seb. Antonio, O my dear Antonio ! 
How have the hours rack'd and tortured me, 
Since I have lost thee ! 

Ant Sebastian are you ? 

Seb. Fear'st thou that, Antonio ? 

Ant. How have you made division of yourself? — 
An apple, cleft in two, is not more twin 
Than these two creatures. Which is Sebastian? 

Oh. Most wonderful ! 

Seb. Do I stand there ? I never had a brother ; 
Nor can there be that deity in my nature, 
Of here and everywhere. I had a sister, 
Whom the blind waves and surges have devour'd. — 
\_To Viola.] Of charity, what kin are you to me? 
What countryman ? what name ? what parentage ? 

Vio. Of Messaline : Sebastian was my father ; 
Such a Sebastian was my brother too, 
So went he suited to his watery tomb : 
If spirits can assume both form and suit, 
You come to fright us. 

15 A strange regard is a look of estra7igeinent or alienation. 

16 K perspective formerly meant a glass that assisted the sight in anyway. 
The several kinds used in Shakespeare's time are enumerated in Scot's Dis- 
coverle of Witchcraft, 1584, where that alluded to by the Duke is thus de- 
scribed : " There be glasses also wherein one man may see another man's 
image and not his own," — where that which is, is not ; or appears, in a 
different position, another thing. 



132 TWELFTH NIGHT ; OR, ACT V. 

Seb, A spirit I am indeed ; 

But am in that dimension grossly clad 
Which from the womb I did participate. 
Were you a woman, as the rest goes even, 
I should my tears let fall upon your cheek, 
And say, Thrice-welcome, drowned Viola ! 

Vio, My father had a mole upon his brow, — 

Seb. And so had mine. 

Vio. — And died that day when Viola from her birth 
Had number'd thirteen years. 

Seb. O, that rec6rd is lively in my soul ! 
He finished, indeed, his mortal act 
That day that made my sister thirteen years. 

Vio. If nothing lets^''' to make us happy both 
But this my masculine usurp 'd attire, 
Do not embrace me till each circumstance 
Of place, time, fortune, do cohere and jump,!^ 
That I am Viola : which to confirm, 
I'll bring you to a captain's in this town. 
Where lie my maid's weeds ; by whose gentle help 
I was preferr'd ^^ to serve this noble Count. 
All the occurrence of my fortune since 
Hath been between this lady and this lord. 

Seb. \To Olivia.] So comes it, lady, you have been 
mistook : 
But Nature to her bias drew in that.^o 



17 Let, often used in the English Bible, but now obsolete, is an old word 
for hinder or prevent. 

18 The Poet repeatedly \i2J=> jump in the sense oi agree or accord. 

19 Prefer was often used in the sense of recommend. 

20 To be mistook was sometimes used, as to be mistaken now is, in the 
sense of making a mistake. The mistake Olivia has made is in being be- 



SCENE I. WHAT YOU WILL. 1 33 

You would have been contracted to a maid ; 
Nor are you therein, by my hfe, deceived, — 
You are betroth'd both to a maid and man.^^ 

Duke. Be not amazed ; right noble is his blood. — 
If this be so, as yet the glass seems true, 
I shall have share in this most happy wreck. — 
\_To Viola.] Boy, thou hast said to me a thousand times 
Thou never shouldst love woman Hke to me. 

Vio. And all those sayings will I over- swear ; 
And all those swearings keep as true in soul 
As doth that orbed continent ^^ the fire 
That severs day from night. 

Duke. Give me thy hand ; 

And let me see thee in thy woman's weeds. 

Vio. The captain that did bring me first on shore 
Hath my maid's garments : he, upon some action. 
Is now in durance, at Malvolio's suit, 
A gentleman and follower of my lady's. 

Oil. He shall enlarge him : — fetch Malvolio hither : — 
And yet, alas, now I remember me, 
They say, poor gentleman, he's much distract. 

Re-enter the Clown with a letter, mid FABLysr. 

A most distracting frenzy of mine own 

From my remembrance clearly banish'd his. — 

How does he, sirrah? 

Clo. Truly, madam, he holds Beelzebub at the stave's end 

trothed to Sebastian instead of Viola ; but this was owing to the bias or pre- 
disposition of Nature, who would not have a woman betrothed to a woman. 

21 Sebastian applies the term maid apparently to himself, in the sense of 
virgin. And why not maiden man as well as maiden sword or maiden 
speech f 

22 Continent formerly meant any thing that contains. 



134 TWELFTH night; or, act Vo 

as well as a man in his case may do. 'Has here writ a letter 
to you : I should have given't you to-day morning ; but, as a 
madman's epistles are no gospels, so it skills not much ^^ 
when they are deliver'd. 

Oli. Open't, and read it. 

Clo. Look, then, to be well edified when the Fool de- 
livers the madman. [Reads.] By the Lord, madam, — 

Oli. How now ! art thou mad ? 

Clo. No, madam, I do but read madness : an your lady- 
ship will have it as it ought to be, you must allow vox?'^ 

Oli. Pr'ythee, read i' thy right wits. 

Clo. So I do, madonna ; but to read his right wits is to 
read thus : therefore perpend,^^ my Princess, and give ear. 

Oli. \_To Fabian.] Read it you, sirrah. 

Fab. [Reads.] By the Lord, madam, you wrong me, 
and the world shall know it : though you have put me into 
darkness, and given your drunken cotisin rule over me, yet 
have I the benefit of my senses as well as your ladyship. / 
have your own letter that induced me to the semblance / put 
on; with the which I doubt not but to do myself nnuh right, 
or you much shame. Think of me as you please. I leave 
my duty a little unthought of, and speak out of my injury. 
The madly-used Malvolio. 

Oli. Did he write this ? 

Clo. Ay, madam. 

Duke. This savours not much of distraction. 

Oli. See him dehver'd, Fabian ; bring him hither. — 

\_Exit Fabian. 

23 A common phrase in the Poet's time, meaning it sig7iifies not much. 

24 " If you would have the letter read in character, you must allow me to 
assume the voice or frantic tone of a madman," 

25 Perpend is consider or weigh. 



SCENE I. WHAT YOU WILL. 1 35 

My lord, so please you, these things further thought on, 
To think me as well a sister as a wife. 
One day shall crown th' alliance on's, so please you, 
Here at my house, and at my proper cost. 

Duke. Madam, I am most apt t' embrace your offer. — 
\To Viola.] Your master quits you ; ^6 and, for your service 

done him, 
So much against the mettle of your sex, ^ 
So far beneath your soft and tender breeding^ 
And since you call'd me master for so long, 
Here is my hand : you shall from this time be 
Your master's mistress. 

Oli. A sister ! — you are she. 

Re-enter Fabian, with Malvolio. 

Duke. Is this the madman? 

Oil. Ay, my lord, this same. — 

How now, MalvoUo ! 

Mai. Madam, you have done me wrong, 

Notorious wrong. 

Oli. Have I, Malvolio? no. 

Mai. Lady, you have. Pray you, peruse that letter : 
You must not now deny it is your hand, — 
Write from it,^"^ if you can, in hand or phrase \ 
Or say 'tis not your seal, not your invention : 
You can say none of this. Well, grant it then ; 
And tell me, in the modesty of honour, 
Why you have given me such clear lights of favour, 

26 Quit for acquit, and in the sense of release, discharge, or set free. So 
in Henry V., iii. 4 : " For your great seats, now quit you of great shames." 
See, also, As You Like It, page 78, note 2. 

27 Write differently from it. We have similar phraseology in common 
use; as, " His speaking was from the purpose," 



136 TWELFTH NIGHT ; OR, ACT V 

Bade me come smiling and cross-garter'd to you. 
To put on yellow stockings, and to frown 
Upon Sir Toby and the lighter people : 
And, acting this in an obedient hope, 
Why have you suffer' d me to be imprison'd. 
Kept in a dark house, visited by the priest. 
And made the most notorious geek ^s and gull 
That e'er invention play'd on? tell me why. 

Oli, Alas, Malvolio, this is not my writing. 
Though, I confess, much like the character : 
But, out of question, 'tis Maria's hand. 
And now I do bethink me, it was she 
First told me thou wast mad : thou camest in smiling. 
And in such forms which here were presupposed 
Upon thee in the letter. Pr'ythee, be content : 
This practice hath most shrewdly pass'd upon thee ; 
But, when we know the grounds and authors of it, 
Thou shalt be both the plaintiff and the judge 
Of thine own cause. 

Fab. Good madam, hear me speak ; 

And let no quarrel nor no brawl to come 
Taint the condition of this present hour. 
Which I have wonder'd at. In hope it shall not, 
Most freely I confess, myself and Toby 
Set this device against Malvolio here. 
Upon some stubborn and uncourteous parts 
We had conceived in him : Maria writ 
The letter at Sir Toby's great importance j ^^ 

28 Geek is from the Saxon geac, a cuckoo, and here means a. fool. — Here, 
as twice before in this play, notorious is used, apparently, for egregious. 

29 hiiportance for importunity. So, in King Lear, iv, 4 : " Therefore 
great France my mourning and important tears hath pitied." 



SCENE I. WHAT YOU WILL. 13/ 

In recompense whereof he hath married her. 
How with a sportful maUce it was follow'd, 
May rather pluck on laughter than revenge ; 
If that the injuries be justly weigh'd 
That have on both sides pass'd. 

Oli. Alas, poor soul, how have they baffled ^^ thee ! 

Clo. Why, some are born great, some achieve greatness, 
and some have greatness thrown upon them, I was one, sir, 
in this interlude, — one Sir Topas, sir ; but that's all one. — 
By the Lord, Fool, I am not mad ; — but do you remember? 
Madam, why laugh you at such a barren rascal? an you 
smile not, he's gagg'd: and thus the whirligig of time brings 
in his revenges. 

Mai. I'll be reveng'd on the whole pack of you. [Exit. 

Oli. He hath been most notoriously abused. 

Duke. Pursue him, and entreat him to a peace : 
He hath not told us of the captain yet : 
When that is known, and golden time convents,^! 
A solemn combination shall be made 
Of our dear souls. Meantime, sweet sister, 
We will not part from hence. — Cesario, come ; 
For so you shall be, while you are a man ; 
But, when in other habits you are seen, 
Orsino's mistress and his fancy's queen. 

\_Exeunt all but the Clown. 

30 To treat with mockery or insult, to run a rig upon, and to make a butt 
of, are among the old senses of baffie. 

SI Convents is agrees or comes Jit; a Latinism. 



138 twelfth night. act v. 

Song. 

Clo. When that I was and^^ a little tiny hoy, 
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain, 
A foolish thing was but a toy, 

For the rain it raineth every day. 

But whe?t I came to man's estate. 

With hey, ho, the wind and the rain, 

' Gainst knave and thief men shut their gate,^^ 
For the rain it raineth every day. 

But when I came, alas ! to wive. 

With hey, ho, the wind and the rain, 

By swaggering could I never thrive, 
For the rain it raineth every day. 

But when I came unto my bed. 

With hey, ho, the wind and the rain, 

With toss-pots still had drunken head^^ 
For the rain it raineth every day. 

A great while ago the world begun, 
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain : 

But thafs all one, our play is do?ie. 

And we'' II strive to please you every day, [Exit, 

32 This redundant use of and is not uncommon in old ballads. 

33 " When I was a boy, my mischievous pranks were little regarded ; but, 
when I grew to manhood, men shut their doors against me as a knave and 
a thief." Gate and door were often used synonymously. 

34 " I had my head drunk with tossing off pots or drams of hquor.'' So 
a grog-shop is sometimes called a pot-house ; and to toss is still used for to 
dnfiL 



CRITICAL NOTES. 



Act I., Scene i. 

Page 30. 0, it came o'er 7ny ear like the sweet south. 
That breathes upon a bank of violets. 

Stealing and giving odour. — The original has sound instead 
of south. Pope, as is well known, substituted south, meaning, of course, 
the south wind, and was followed, I think, by all subsequent editors 
until Knight. The change is most certainly right. For with what pro- 
priety can a soujid be said to " breathe upon a bank of violets, stealing 
and giving odour " ? Moreover, in the old reading, we have a com- 
parison made between a thing and itself! It is as much as to say, 
" The sweet sound came o'er my ear like the sweet sound." The Poet 
evidently meant to compare the music to a sweet breeze loaded with 
fragrance ; the former coming over the ear as the latter comes over 
another sense. So that the old reading is simply absurd. Knight and 
Grant White waste a deal of ingenious and irrelevant rhetoric in trying 
to make it good ; but nothing of that sort can redeem it from absurd- 
ity. And by the methods they use we can easily read almost any 
sense we please into whatever words come before us. In this case, 
they but furnish an apt illustration of how a dotage of the old letter, 
and a certain exegetical jugglery, may cheat even good heads into an 
utter dereliction of common sense. — Some one has noted, that to sup- 
pose a comparison was here intended between the effect of music on 
the ear and that of fragrance on the sense of smell, is almost to ignore 
" the difference between poetry and prose." O no ! it is merely to 
recognize the difference between sense and nonsense. For how should 
odour affect us but through the sense of smell? But perhaps the writer, 
being in a jocose humour, caught the style of " sweet bully Bottom," 
and so played the Duke into the funny idea of hearing an odour that 
he smelt, or of smelling a sound that he heard. For why not a sweet- 

139 



140* TWELFTH NIGHT. 

sounding smell as well as a sweet-smelling sound? — In England, how- 
ever, the south winds generally are so ill conditioned, that English edi- 
tors are naturally reluctant to admit such a phrase as " the sweet south." 
But south winds are not the same everywhere as in England : and why 
may not the Poet have had in mind such a south as often breathes in 
other places? Nor do English writers always speak ill of winds that 
Nowfrom southerly quarters. Sir Philip Sidney, in his Arcadia, 1590, 
has the following : " Her breath is more sweet than a gentle south-wG?X 
wind, which comes creeping over flowery fields and shadowed waters." 
And Lettsom notes upon the passage, " A south-wester is a heavy gale 
from the south-west ; but we often have genial, bright, and growing 
weather from that quarter, as well as from the south." 

P. 31. The element itself, till seven year sYi^&nzQ. — The original has 
heate for hence. Corrected by Rowe. Heat is ridiculous. 

P. 31. When liver, brain, and hearty 

These sovereign thrones, her sweet perfections, 
Are all supplied and fill'd with one self king. — The original 
prints " Are all supplied and fill'd " as the latter part of the second line, 
and " her sweet perfections " as the first part of the third. Sense, logic, 
grammar, and prosody, all, I think, plead together for the transposition, 
which was made by Capell. 

Act i., Scene 2. 

P. 31. Vio. What country, friends, is this ? 

Cap. Illyria, lady. — The 

original has " This is Illyria, Ladie." Pope omitted This is, and Dyce 
suspected it to be an interpolation. 

P. 32. When you, and this poor nwnber saved with you. — The 
original has those instead of this. Corrected by Capell. 

P. 33. For zvhose dear loss, 

They say, she hath abjured the company 

Andsi^X. of men. — The original transposes company and sight, 
and has love instead of loss. The former correction is Hamner's ; the 
latter, Walker's. 



CRITICAL NOTES. I4I 

P. 34. Ve^ of thee 

/well believe thou hast a mind that suits 

With this thy fair a7td ozitward character. — The old text reads 
" I zvill believe." The correction is Walker's. We have many in- 
stances of well and will confounded. 

Act I., Scene 3. 

P. 36. He hath, indeed, all most natural. — So Collier's second 
folio. The original has " almost naturall." 

P. 36. What, wejich ! Castiliano volto. — So Hanmer. The origi- 
nal has vulgo for volto. 

P. 37. A71 thou let her part so. — Her is wanting in the original. 
Supplied in the third folio. 

P. T^Z. Never in your life, I think ; tinless you saw canary put me 
down. — The original has see instead of saw. 

P. 39. For thou see^st it will not curl by nattire. — The original 
reads " coole my nature." One of Theobald's happy corrections.' 

P. 39. And yet I will not compare with a nobleman. — Instead of 
a nobleman, the original has an old ?}ian. But why should Sir An- 
drew here speak of comparing himself with an old man ? The whole 
drift of the foregoing dialogue is clearly against that reading. Theo- 
bald proposed the change ; and Dr. Badham, in Cambridge Essays, 
1856, justly remarks upon it thus: "Sir Andrew has just been speak- 
ing of the Count Orsino as a rival whom he cannot pretend to cope 
with ; so that the allusion to nobleman is most natural." 

P. 40. It does indifferent well in a ^dsa.^-colour'' d stock. — The old 
text reads " a dani'd colour'd stocke." Corrected by Rowe. Knight 
changed dam''d to damask, which has been adopted in some editions. 
Collier's second folio has dun- colour'' d. 

Act I., Scene 4. 

P. 42. Thy small pipe 

Is as the maiden's organ, shrill in sound. — The original has 



142 TWELFTH NIGHT. 

"shrill, and sowad.''^ I suspect it should be "shrill ^ sound." We have 
other instances where o/a.nd &' were apparently confounded. The cor- 
rection in was proposed anonymously. 

Act I., Scene 5. 

P. 45. Thafs as much as to say. — The original transposes the sec- 
ond as, thus : " That's as much to say as^ 

P. 46. / take those wise 7nen, that crow so at these set kind of Fools, 
to be no better than the fools'' zanies. — The original has " these wise 
men," and omits to be. The former correction is Hanmer's ; the latter 
was made by Capell, and is also found in Collier's second folio. 

P. 47. For here comes one of thy kin. — In the original, " heere he 
comes." Rowe's correction. 

P. 50. If you be mad, be gone ; if you have reason, be brief. — The 
original reads " If you be not mad." The correction is Mason's, and 
is amply sustained by the context. 

P. 51. Vio. Some mollification for your giant, sweet lady. 

Oli. Tell me your mind. 

Vio. / am a messenger. — So Warburton. The original 
runs the three speeches all into one ; the prefixes having probably 
dropped out accidentally. See foot-note 20. 

P. 52. Look you, sir, such a one I was this present. — For my own 
part, I see no difficulty here ; but many have stumbled at the text, and 
several changes have been proposed ; the only one of which that seems 
to me much worth considering is Lettsom's : " Such a one as / this 
presents^ See foot-note 22. 

P. 52. With adorations, v/\\h. fertile tears. 

With groans that thunder love, &c. — The second with is lack- 
ing in the old text. Inserted by Pope. 

P. 53. If I did love you in my master'' s flame. 

With such a suffering, stich a deadly love. — The original has 
"such a deadly lifeP A very evident misprint, I think; yet it has 
waited a good while to be corrected. 



CRITICAL NOTES. T43 



Act II., Scene 



P. 56. My father taas that Sebastian of Messaline. — There is no 
such place known as Messaline ; so some think, and apparently with 
good reason, that we ought to read Mytilene, the name of an island in 
the Archipelago. 

P. 56. Though I could not, with such an estimable toonder, over-far 
believe that. — The original omits an, and thus leaves the passage so 
very obscure, to say the least, that it might well be, as indeed it has 
been, a great puzzle to the editors. Various changes have been pro- 
posed ; but the insertion of aji is by far the simplest and most satis- 
factory. It was proposed by Mr. W. W. Williams in The Literary 
Gazette, March 29, 1 862, with the following remark : " I would submit 
that, if Sebastian's speech be read carefully, it will require no long 
pondering to perceive that he is modestly deprecating any comparison 
of himself with such a beautiful girl as his sister. If that be the pur- 
port of the words, — and there can hardly be a doubt about it, — the 
simple insertion of the indefinite article will meet all the necessities of 
the case." See foot-note 4. 



Act II., Scene 2. 

P. 58. She took no ring of me : Til none of it. — The original reads 
" She took the ring." As this is not true, the explanation sometimes 
given of it is, that Viola, with instantaneous tact, divines the meaning 
of the ring, and takes care, at the expense of a fib, not to expose 
Olivia's tender weakness. But this, perhaps, is putting too fine a point 
upon it. Dyce at one time retained the old text ; but in his last edi- 
tion he says, " I now think it quite wrong, and that what has been said 
in defence of it is ridiculously over-subtile." The correction is from 
Collier's second folio. 



P. 58. That, as methought, her eyes had lost her tongtie. — So 
Walker. The original has " That me thought her eyes." The second 
folio fills up the gap in the verse by inserting sure instead of as. 



144 TWELFTH NIGHT. 

P. 58. Alas, ovx frailty is the cause, not we ! 

For, such as we are made of, such we be. — The original has 
" Alas, O frailtie is the cause," and " such as we are made, if such Ave 
be." The second folio substitutes our for O, and Hanmer printed 
" ev'n such we be." The common reading is as in the text. Tyrwhitt's 
correction. 

P. 59. And I, poor monster , fond as much on him, 

As she, mistaken, seems to dote on me. — The original has " And 
she, mistaken," &c. Corrected by Dyce. 

Act II., Scene 3. 

P. 64. Out <?' time sir ? ye lie. Art any more than a steward? — 
So Theobald. The old text has tune instead of time. As the whole 
speech is evidently addressed to Malvolio, tune cannot be right ; while 
time accords perfectly with what has passed a little before between Sir 
Toby and the steward. 

P. 65. To challenge him the field. — So the old copies; but com- 
monly printed ^^ to the field"; "improperly, I believe," says Dyce. 

P. 65. Sir And. Possess us, possess us. — In the old text, this speech 
is given to Sir Toby. Corrected by Walker ; who remarks, " Surely 
Sir Toby needed no information respecting Malvolio." 

P. 66. Sir To. And your horse now would make him an ass. — 
Here we have just the converse of the preceding instance : the speech 
has the prefix " AnP in the original. But the speech is too keen for 
Sir Andrew to make. Tyrwhitt pointed out the error. 

Act II., Scene 4. 

P. 68. Go seek him out : — and play the tune the while. — The 
original lacks Go at the beginning of this line. Supplied by Capell. 

P. 69. Our fancies are more giddy and unfirm-. 

More longing, wavering, sooner lost and won. — So Hanmer 
and Collier's second folio. The original has " lost and worne." 



CRITICAL NOTES. I45 

P. 70. Lay me, O, where 

Sad trne-Zove never find my grave. — The original has " Sad 
true lover." Corrected by Capell. 

P. 72. No motion of the liver, but the palate, — 

That su^^rs stirfeit, cloyment, atzd revolt. — The original has 
suffer, which is convicted of error by the explanations it has called 
forth. Corrected by Rowe. 



Act II., Scene 5. 

P. 76, And perchance wind up my watch, or play tvith some rich 
jewel. — The original has " play with my some rich jewel "j Jity being 
probably repeated by mistake. 

P. 76. Though our silence be drawn from us by th' ears, yet peace. 
— So Hanmer and Collier's second folio. The original has the strange 
reading, " drawn from us with cars "/ which has provoked some ex- 
planations equally strange. As Dyce remarks, " bith was very common 
as the contraction of by the ; and therefore bith ears might easily be 
corrupted into with carsJ^ So I leave the text, though I have little 
doubt it should be wi^ tK ears : for the Poet very often uses with in 
such cases where we should use by, and the double elision of with and 
the, so as to make one syllable, is very frequent with him. 

P. 78. And with what wing the staniel checks at it! — The original 
has stallion. Corrected by Hanmer. 

P. 80. God and my stars be praised. — God, / thank Thee. — In 
both these places, the original has yove. But Malvolio is not a 
Heathen ; he is rather a strait-laced sort of Christian ; such a one as 
would be very apt to ascribe his supposed good fortune to the fact of 
his being among " the elect." So 1 suspect that Jove was inserted by 
some second hand in compliance with the well-known statute against 
profanation. Halliwell prints as in the text ; and I was fully convinced 
it ought to be so, long before I knew he had printed it so. 



146 TWELFTH NIGHT. 



Act III., Scene i. 

P. 82. So thou mayst say, the king lives by a beggar. — The original 
has lyes instead of lives ; an error which the context readily corrects. 

P. 84. Would not a pair of these breed, sir ? — The original reads 
" Would not a pair of these have bred^ But the course of the dialogue 
plainly requires the sense of the future. 

P. 85. Not, like the haggard, check at every feather 

That comes before his eye. — So Collier's second folio. The old 
text has '■^ And\^k.^ the Haggard," which just contradicts the sense re- 
quired. Johnson suggested the reading in the text, and rightly ex- 
plained the meaning of the passage to be, " He must choose persons 
and times, and observe tempers ; he must fly at proper game, like the 
trained hawk, and not fly at large like the unreclaimed haggard, to 
seize all that comes in his way." 

P. 85. For folly, that he wisely shows, is fit ; 

But wise men^s folly, shown, quite taints their wit. — The origi- 
nal has " But wisemens folly falne, quite taint their wit "; from which 
no rational meaning can be gathered. The word shows, in the preced- 
ing line, points out the right reading. Hanmer made the correction. 
See foot-note 12. 

P. 86. ril gei ^em all three ready. — The original has " all three 
already.^'' Corrected in the third folio. 

P. 87. Give me leave, I beseech you. — So the third folio. The 
earlier editions omit /. 

Act III., Scene 2. 

P. 89. Did she see thee the while, old boy ? — So the third folio. 
The earlier editions omit thee. 

P. 91. We'' II call thee at thy cubiculo. — So Hanmer. The origi- 
nal hasY-^^ instead of thy. 



CRITICAL NOTES. 1 47 

P. 92. For Andrew, if he were opened, 2.n you find so much blood in 
his liver. Sec. — The original has "if he were open'd, and you find." 
The correction is Walker's. And is indeed an archaic form of the old 
concessive an. 

P. 92. Look, where the youngest wren of nine co^nes. — So Theo- 
bald. The old text has mine instead of nine. See foot-note 11. 

Act III., Scene 3. 

P. 93. As might have drawn me to a longer voyage. — The original 
has one instead of me. Corrected by Heath. 



P. 94. / can no other answer make, but t 

And thanks, and ever thanks ; too oft good turns 
Are shuffled off with such uncurrent pay. — In the original, the 
second line stands thus : " And thankes : and ever oft good turnes." 
A large number of readings has been made or proposed. That in the 
text is by Seymour. 

Act III., Scene 4. 

P. 96. I have sent after hi?}t : says he, he'' II come. 

How shall I feast hijn ? — The old text reads " he says hee'l 
come." But the concessive sense is evidently required, not the affirma- 
tive. Theobald saw this clearly, and so printed " say he will come." 
The simple transposition made in the text gets the same sense naturally 
enough ; the subjunctive being often formed in that way. 

P. 97. My yellow stockings ! — The original has Thy instead of 
My. The correction is Lettsom's, and a very happy one it is too. 

P. 98, Let thy tongue twang argtwients of State. — The original has 
*' let thy tongue langer with arguments." The second folio substitutes 
tang for langer ; tang being merely an old form or spelling of twang. 
See the letter as given in full in ii. 5, page 80. 

P. 98. But it is God's doing, and God make me thankful. — Here, 
again, as also later in the same speech, the original has Jove. See 
note on " God and my stars be praised," page 145. 



140 TWELFTH NIGHT. 

P. 102. Very brief, and exceeding good sense — less. — So Rowe and 
various others. The original has " and to exceeding." I cannot see 
what business to has there. 

P. 103. Fve said too much unto a heart of stone, 

And laid 7nine honour too unchary out. — So Theobald. The 
original has "too unchary onH'''' ; which some editors still retain, and 
try to support with arguments more ingenious than sound. 

P. 104. He is knight, dubU'dtvith unhack'd rapier and on carpet 
consideration. — So Pope. The original has "with unhatch' d x2.-^\&x .'''' 
To hatch was used for to ornament ; so that unhatch^d rapier would 
hardly accord with the occasion. Of course an unhack'd rapier is a 
rapier that has done no service in fight. So in King John, ii. i : 
" With unhack d swords and helmets all unbruised." 

Act III., Scene 5. 

P. 106. Scene V. — The Street adjoining Ounia.^s Garden. — The 
original and most modern editions print this scene as a continuation of 
the preceding one. In the Poet's time, changes of scene were not 
unfrequently left to the imagination of the audience ; the machinery 
and furniture not being so ample then as in later days. The course of 
the action and various particulars of the dialogue, as any one will see 
who notes them carefully, plainly require a change of scene in this 
place. Dyce arranges as m the text. 

P. 109. Relieved him with all sanctity of love ; 

And to this image, which methought did promise 

Most venerable worth, did I devotion. 

But, O, how vile an idol proves this god! — The original has 
" with such sanctity," and " to his image." With the former, the text 
has so abrupt and misplaced a break in the sense, that Walker thought, 
as he well might, that a line had dropped out after love. The context, 
I think, fairly requires the sense of all instead of such. Much might 
more easily be misprinted such, but is not strong enough for the place. 
The common reading sets a dash after love, of course to indicate a 
break in the sense : the original has a (;) as if not aware of any break. 



CRITICAL NOTES. I49 

" To this image " is proposed by Walker ; and the occurrence of idol 
in the last line shows it to be right. Antonio does not mean that he 
has been worshipping an- image of the supposed Sebastian, but that 
what he has taken for something divine turns out to be but a hollow 
image. 

Act IV., Scene i. 

P. III. I am afraid this great lubberly world zvill prove a cockney. 
— So Collier's second folio. The original has " this great lubber the 
World." Douce proposed to read " this great lubberly word,'''' taking 
word as referring to ve7tt, and that reading is adopted by White, who 
explains great lubberly as meaning pretentious. Dyce says, " I can 
hardly believe that Shakespeare would have made the Clown speak of 
vent as a ' great lubberly word.' " 

P. 112. Why, there's for thee, a7id there, and there, and there ! 

Are all the people mad? — The original lacks the last and there, 
which was added by Capell. Such omissions are apt to occur in case 
of such repetitions. 

P. 1 14. Nay, come, I pray : would thou^dst be ruled by me. — So 
Pope. The original has "Nay come IpretheeJ'' Walker says, " Read 
I pray ; the other is too rugged for a rhyming couplet." 

Act IV., Scene 2. 

P. 114. Sir To. God bless thee, master parson. — Here also the old 
text has Jove ; quite as much out of place as in the former instances. 

P. 115. Say'' st thou this house is dark? — The original has that in- 
stead of this. Corrected by Rann. 

P. 117. I cannot pursue zuith any safety this sport to the upshot. — 
The original omits to. Supplied by Rowe. 

P. 119. Are you not mad indeed ? or do you but counterfeit ? — This 
must mean "Are you really sane? or do you but pretend to be so?" 
Johnson proposed to strike out not, and, I suspect, rightly. That 



150 TWELFTH NIGHT. 

would give the meaning, " Are you really mad? or have you merely 
been shamming madness?" which seems more in keeping with the 
Clown's humour. 

P. 119. Adieu, goodman Devil. — The original has " goodjnait 
divell"; thus making a rhyme by repeating the same word. Many 
recent editors change divell to drivel. Still I must think the change 
to be wrong : for such repetitions, instead of rhymes proper, are not 
unfrequent in old ballads ; especially where the rhymes are not con- 
secutive. 

Act v., Scene i. 

P. 123. The triplex, sir, is a good tripping measure ; as the bells of 
Saint Bennet, &c. — So Hanmer. The old text has or instead of as. 

P. 128. A contract and eternal bond of love. — So Collier's second 
folio. Instead of and, the original repeats ^by anticipation. 

P. 130, Then he''s a rogue and a passy-measures paynim. — The 
original \vzs panyn, which Pope corrected to paynim, an old form of 
pagan. The second folio Q\\zxig^s pavyn to Panin. See foot-note 14. 

P. 131. You throw a strange regard on me ; by that 

I do perceive it hath offended you. — The original reads " a 
strange regard upon me, and by that." The reading in the text is 
Lettsom's ; who remarks, " and is wretchedly flat here; it probably 
crept in from the line above. Pope and others have * on me, by 
which,'' &c." 

P. 132. /'// bring you to a captain's in this town. 

Where lie my maid's weeds ; by whose gentle help 
I was preferr'd to serve this noble Count. — The old text has 
Captaine instead of captain's, maiden instead of maid's, and pr-'serv' d 
instead of preferr'd. The first change is from Collier's second folio ; 
the other two were made by Theobald, one for the metre, the other for 
the sense ; as preserved gives an untrue meaning. A little further on, 
Viola speaks of " my maid^s garments." 



CRITICAL NOTES. I51 

P. 133. A most distracting frenzy of mine own. — So Hanmer and 
Collier's second folio. The original has " most extracting frenzy." 
Here extracting has to be explained in the sense of distracting, while 
it does not appear that the word was ever used in that sense. And the 
preceding line has distract in the same sense. 

P. 135. One day shall crown t/i' alliance on's, so please you. — The 
old text has " th' alliance onH " ,• the easiest of misprints. Of course 
on^s is a contraction of on us. The Poet has many such. 

P. 136. It zuas she 

First told me thou wast mad: thou caj?iest in smiling. — So 
Collier's second folio, and with manifest propriety. The old text has 
then instead of the second thou. 

P. 136. Upon some stubborn and uncourteous parts 

We had conceived in him. — The original reads " conceiv'd 
against him," defeating both sense and verse. No doubt against cx^-^t 
in from the second line before. Corrected by Tyrwhitt. 

P. 137. Alas, poor soul, hoiu have they baffled thee ! — So Walker 
and Collier's second folio. The old text has fool instead of soul. It is 
true, as Dyce notes, that the Poet \iz.% poor fool repeatedly as a term of 
familiar endearment or of pitying fondness ; but that seems to me too 
strong a sense for this place. 

P. 138. ^ Gainst 'k.TX'aNQ. and thief men shut their gate. — So Farmer. 
The original has " Knaves and Theeves. " Also, in the second stanza 
after, it has " unto my beds^'' and " drunken heades" See foot-note 33. 



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